Leading researcher in surface chemistry and catalysis who won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1998 and the National Medal of Science in 2002.
He studied chemical engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in 1956.
He has also worked as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
He was born to Jewish parents and was saved from the Nazis when his mother obtained Swedish passports from a friend in 1944.
He was awarded the Wolf Foundation Prize in Chemistry in 1998 along with Gerhad Ertl.
