Princeton honorary degree recipient Omar Yahgi wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Omar Yaghi, who was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Princeton in May, received the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for his pioneering work in developing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).

A Jordanian-American chemist, Yaghi is the James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. He shares the award with chemists Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University and Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne.

Yaghi was awarded the honorary degree in recognition of his creation of reticular chemistry, which links molecular building blocks into highly porous, stable structures such as MOFs and covalent organic frameworks (COFs).

MOFs are like sponges with tiny pores, which makes them able to generate huge internal surface areas; a single gram of an MOF can have as much internal surface area as a football field. The key innovation is that these materials can retain their porosity permanently, making them highly versatile.

The work of Yaghi, Kitagawa, and Robson has spawned over 100,000 distinct types of MOFs, with some being used for the separation of gases such as propane and propylene and others with potential for hydrogen storage.

In recent years, Yaghi created types of MOFs that can absorb water from desert air and improve access to drinking water. Additionally, Yaghi’s work with covalent organic frameworks and zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) could revolutionize clean water production and delivery systems.

Through his undergraduate studies, Yaghi supported himself by working as a grocery store clerk and a janitor. He earned his B.S. in chemistry from State University of New York at Albany, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and completed a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

He has received numerous research honors, including the Wolfe Prize in Chemistry and the Albert Einstein World Award of Science. He is also an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. During Princeton’s 2025 commencement ceremonies, Yaghi was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree in recognition of his significant achievements.

“I, along with many others, have been hoping that a Nobel for MOFs was in the works,” Mircea Dincǎ, a chemistry professor at Princeton and MOF researcher himself, wrote in an article explaining MOFs for the Department of Chemistry.

The Princeton Department of Chemistry also expressed congratulations to Yaghi and his fellow Nobel laureates in an Instagram post. “We extend sincere congratulations to Messrs. Kitagawa, Robson, and Yaghi,” the post reads.

Yaghi is the second Princeton-affiliated Nobel laureate this week, after Mary Brunkow GS ’91 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Oct. 6. The upcoming announcement of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 13.

Daphne Lewis is a News and Research contributor for the ‘Prince’. She is from Washington, DC and can be reached at dl1424@princeton.edu.