Omar Yaghi
The Refugee Who Learned to Build Homes for Molecules
Born Omar Mwannes Yaghi on 9 February 1965 in Amman, Jordan, to Palestinian refugee parents, Omar Yaghi founded reticular chemistry and created metal-organic frameworks — porous crystals that store gases, capture carbon and pull water from desert air — sharing the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
- 16 min listen
- Nobel laureate
- Metal-organic frameworks
- Reticular chemistry
Omar Yaghi’s full 16 min audio biography, The Refugee Who Learned to Build Homes for Molecules, is available on Lyfestori for iOS. Listen to a free preview below.
A life in brief
Omar Yaghi: life and timeline.
In Amman the municipal water flowed for a few hours every week or two, and when word went round, Omar Yaghi ran for the buckets. His family of Palestinian refugees lived in one room, shared with their animals. At about ten he wandered into a school library and found drawings of molecules. At fifteen he left for America, enrolled at a community college in Troy, New York, and bagged groceries. In 1999 his team reported MOF-5. In 2025 the Nobel committee called.
- 1965
Born in Amman
Born on 9 February to Palestinian parents who had fled the village of Al-Masmiyya in 1948. His father, who had a sixth-grade education, insists his children attend a private school.
- 1980
Alone to America
At fifteen, given the choice of studying in America or Russia, he chooses America. He enrols at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, New York, learns English and works as a grocery bagger.
- 1985
Chemistry at Albany
After an associate degree he transfers to the State University of New York at Albany and graduates in chemistry. Juggling three lab projects at once, he discovers he loves research.
- 1990
PhD at Illinois
He earns his doctorate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under Walter Klemperer, who pushes students to make things no one has made, then takes an NSF postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard.
- 1992
A basement lab in Arizona
At twenty-seven he joins Arizona State University and starts trying to design materials the way an architect designs a building, by linking chosen molecular building blocks with strong bonds.
- 1999
MOF-5
Now at the University of Michigan, his team reports MOF-5 in Nature: a zinc-based framework that stays porous, with an internal surface area of around 2,900 square metres per gram.
- 2005
Covalent organic frameworks
His group reports the first COFs, frameworks built entirely from light elements such as carbon and oxygen. Zeolitic imidazolate frameworks follow.
- 2012
To Berkeley
After five years at UCLA he moves to the University of California, Berkeley, where he becomes founding director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute.
- 2017
Water from air
With Evelyn Wang's team at MIT he reports in Science a solar-powered device that uses a MOF to pull water from air at humidity down to about 20 per cent.
- 2020
Founding Atoco
He founds Atoco to commercialise framework materials for carbon capture and atmospheric water harvesting.
- 2025
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
On 8 October he is awarded the Nobel Prize with Susumu Kitagawa and Richard Robson for the development of metal-organic frameworks, and receives it in Stockholm in December.
- 2026
Move to Tsinghua
In July he leaves Berkeley for a full-time chair professorship at Tsinghua University in Beijing, leading a new lab combining AI and materials science.
Major achievements
Omar Yaghi: major achievements.
- 01
Founding reticular chemistry
He turned framework-making from trial and error into design: choose metal clusters and organic linkers, stitch them together with strong bonds and get a predictable crystal. Swapping linkers changes the pore size without changing the blueprint.
- 02
MOF-5 and permanent porosity
His 1999 Nature paper showed that a metal-organic framework could hold its shape when emptied, with an enormous internal surface. Tens of thousands of MOFs have been reported since.
- 03
New families of materials
Covalent organic frameworks (2005) and zeolitic imidazolate frameworks extended the same idea to light-element and zeolite-like structures, each becoming a field of its own.
- 04
Drinking water from desert air
Zirconium and later aluminium frameworks such as MOF-801 and MOF-303 soak up water vapour at night and release it in sunlight, in devices with no moving parts and no external power.
- 05
The honours
The King Faisal International Prize (2015), the Albert Einstein World Award of Science (2017), the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2018) and the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Turning points
Omar Yaghi: defining moments.
- Around age ten
An unlocked library
The school library was usually locked, but one afternoon it was open. He found a book of ball-and-stick diagrams without knowing they were molecular structures, and felt drawn to them. It was his first encounter with the shapes he would spend his life building.
- Age fifteen
Choosing America
His father offered a choice of studying in America or Russia. He chose America and arrived alone with limited English. Starting at a two-year college rather than a famous university, he worked menial jobs to pay his way.
- 1990s
The bet nobody backed
Porous materials such as zeolites already existed, and many chemists doubted metal-organic structures could ever be stable enough to use. He kept building and failing in a basement lab at Arizona State until MOF-5 proved the idea in 1999.
- 2026
Leaving Berkeley
A year after the Nobel he moved to Tsinghua, where he had been an honorary professor since 2022. He told Nature the outlook for US science was not encouraging because of grant cuts.
Smart people, talented people, skilled people exist everywhere.
Omar Yaghi, speaking after the 2025 Nobel Prize announcement
What you’ll take away
Lessons from Omar Yaghi’s life.
- 01
Design beats luck
Instead of mixing chemicals and hoping, Yaghi picked each building block on purpose. Choosing the parts first is what made his materials predictable and tunable.
- 02
Curiosity first, uses later
He built frameworks because he found them beautiful. Carbon capture and water harvesting came years after the basic science.
- 03
There is more than one way in
A Nobel laureate who started at a community college is a reminder that the starting point matters less than what you do there.
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FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Omar Yaghi.
What did Omar Yaghi win the Nobel Prize for?
For developing metal-organic frameworks. He shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Susumu Kitagawa and Richard Robson for these porous crystals, which can store gases, capture carbon dioxide and harvest water from air.
Where was Omar Yaghi born?
In Amman, Jordan, on 9 February 1965. His parents were Palestinian refugees from the village of Al-Masmiyya, and he grew up in one room with no electricity or running water.
What is Omar Yaghi's full name?
Omar Mwannes Yaghi. He usually publishes as Omar M. Yaghi.
What nationality is Omar Yaghi?
Jordanian-born, and an American citizen. He moved to the US at fifteen, and in 2021 he was also granted Saudi citizenship by royal decree.
Where did Omar Yaghi go to college?
Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, New York, then the State University of New York at Albany, where he earned a chemistry degree in 1985. He took his PhD at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1990.
What did Omar Yaghi invent?
Metal-organic frameworks, starting with MOF-5 in 1999, and later covalent organic frameworks. Building on them, his group and MIT engineers created devices that pull drinking water from dry air using only sunlight.
Why did Omar Yaghi move to China?
To lead a new AI and materials science lab at Tsinghua University in Beijing, which he joined full time in July 2026. He had been an honorary professor there since 2022, and he has cited cuts to US research grants.
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16 min · one sitting