Upstate NY grad Omar Yaghi wins Nobel Prize for chemistry

Kathleen Moore l Times Union, Albany, N.Y. (TNS)

A scientist who once had to spend a semester proving his worth to Hudson Valley Community College has now won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Omar Yaghi, who is now at the University of California, Berkeley, won the prize with Susumu Kitagawa and Richard Robson “for the development of metal-organic frameworks.” Yaghi described his work as developing a way to “stitch together” molecules into a form large enough for molecular gas to move through it.

This allows scientists to compact gases without high pressure or low temperature, Yaghi said. It can be used to separate carbon dioxide or “harvest water from desert air,” he said on his website.

Yaghi grew up in Amman, Jordan, the child of Palestinian parents. He got his start as a refugee in