2017 - Professor Laurens Molenkamp-

Professor Laurens Molenkamp

Laurens Molenkamp studied Physical Chemistry in Groningen University (1974-1980) from which he also obtained his Ph.D. in 1985. Throughout the next 10 years, he became involved in industrial research at the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In 1994, he took up the post of Associate Professor at RWTH, Aachen University in Aachen, Germany, and in 1999, he became the Chair of Experimental Physics and Head of the Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) Unit at the Physics Institute in the University of Würzburg, Germany.

Professor Molenkamp’s research focuses on quantum transport in nanostructures, semiconductor spintronics and optical spectroscopy of semiconductors. He is famous for discovering the quantum spin Hall effect, which in turn opened up a whole new field of topological insulators. He has also developed novel methods for creating and manipulating spin-polarized charge carrier states in semiconductors, which have the potential to develop magnetic storage devices.

He has published around 375 papers in major international journals and has been a Thomson-Reuter Citation Laureate in 2014. He has delivered many invited lectures and several named colloquia. He served as an Editor-in-Chief of Semiconductor Science and Technology (2001-2011), Divisional Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters (001-2007), Editor of EPJ Applied Physics (2004-2015) and presently is Lead Editor of Physical Review B (2012).

Professor Molenkamp’s outstanding achievements have been recognized by several prizes and honors, including the Europhysics Prize (2010), American Physical Society Oliver E. Buckley Prize (2012), Frontier Physics Prize (2013), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation DFG (2014) and the Stern-Gerlach Medal (2017). He was an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the American Physics Society and Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2017 - Professor Daniel Loss-

Professor Daniel Loss

Daniel Loss studied theoretical physics at the University of Zurich (1979-1983) from which he obtained a Ph.D. in Statistical Mechanics in 1985. His academic career spans around 35 years. He worked first as a Post-doctoral Research Associate at Zurich (1985-1989) then moved to the USA as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (with Nobel Laureate Prof. A. J. Leggett) at the University of Illinois, Urbana (1989-1991) then as a Research Scientist at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York (1991-1993). Thereafter, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor, then as an Associate Professor of Physics (1993-1995; 1995-1996, respectively) at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. In 1996, he returned to Basel University as Professor (Ordinarius) of Theoretical Physics and chaired the Department of Physics three times between 1998 and 2010. He has also served as a Co-Director of the Swiss National Center of Competence and Research in Nanoscale Science and is currently a Professor of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics at Basel University, Director of the Basel

Center for Quantum Computing and Quantum Coherence and Co-Director of the Swiss Nanoscale Center at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute.

Professor Loss has made seminal contributions to the quantum theory of spin dynamics and spin coherence in semiconductors, particularly in quantum dots. Together with D.P. DiVincenzo proposed the concept of a spin quantum computer of exceptionally high speed and storage capacity, using electron spins trapped in quantum dots as qubits. This and many other ground-breaking predictions by Loss and his team have been confirmed experimentally by other groups around the world and have inspired much further research into the basic physics and practical applications of spin-related phenomena and, in particular, spin qubits in developing powerful quantum computers, and in structures such as semiconducting quantum dots, nanowires, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and molecular magnets. Professor Loss has also made pioneering contributions to low-dimensional interacting systems (discovered new states of matter), to topological quantum memories and topological quantum computing based on Majorana fermions and parafermions.

Professor Loss has authored over 435 papers, with a total Web of Science (Google Scholar) citations of 24,830 (35,720) and an H-index of 73 (85). His accomplishments in the field of solid state quantum information processing have been recognized by more than 415 invited talks at international conferences, and by major awards and honors, namely the Humboldt Research Prize (2005), the Marcel Benoist Prize, the highest scientific honor in Switzerland (2010), Simon Distinguished Visiting Scholar KITP (2013) and the Blaise Pascal Medal in Physics from the European Academy of Sciences (2014). He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2000) and the Institute of Physics (UK, 2005) and an Elected Member of the European Academy of Sciences (2013) and the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina (2014).

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2017 -Prof. Tadamitsu Kishimoto-

Professor Tadamitsu Kishimoto


Tadamitsu Kishimoto graduated from Osaka University Medical School in 1964, and completed a one-year internship at Osaka University Hospital, and obtained his Ph.D. in medicine in 1969. Between 1970 and 1974, he pursued post-doctoral research in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School, working under Professor Kimishige Ishizaka, the discoverer of IgE. He returned to Osaka University Medical School in 1974 as an assistant professor of medicine and progressed rapidly through his academic and research career becoming a full professor in 1979. He served as the dean and chairman of the Department of Medicine at Osaka University and was the university’s president from 1997-2003, and a Member of the Council for Science and Technology Policy from 2004 to 2006. Currently, he is a professor of Immunology at the Immunology Frontier Research Center in Osaka University.

Professor Kishimoto has made seminal contributions to our understanding of cytokine functions in general and interleukin-6 IL-6 in particular. He discovered and cloned IL-6, elucidated its functions, its signaling pathway, receptor system, and transcription factors. He then continued developing a humanized anti-IL 6 receptor antibody therapy ACTEMRA, Tocilizumab that has proven to be highly successful in the treatment of several immune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, Castleman’s disease, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and other autoimmune inflammatory disorders. Kishimoto’s work has been of paramount importance in the field of pro-inflammatory cytokines and has established paradigms for the study of cytokine biology. His studies on IL-6, which spanned around thirty years, have been highly regarded, ranking him among the world’s most cited researchers. He has published around 620 papers and nearly 140 review articles.

Professor Kishimoto has received numerous prestigious awards and honors, including the Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy in 1992, the Sandoz Prize for Immunology of the International Union of Immunological Society in 1992, the Avery-Landsteiner Prize of the German Immunology in 1996, ISI Citation Laureate Award in 2000, an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the Universidad Tecnologica de Santiago, UTESA, in 2001, an Honorary Professorship at the Fourth Military Medical College, Xian, China in 2002, an Honorary Doctor of Science from Mahidol University in 2003, Robert Koch Gold Medal in 2003, a Distinguished Professorship of Medicine and Immunology, University California, Davis in 2004, an Honorary LifeTime Achievements Award from the International Cytokine Society in 2006, the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2009, and the Japan Prize in 2011. He was awarded the Order of Culture from the Emperor of Japan in 1998 and Royal Decoration from the Kingdom of Thailand in 2012. He was also elected as a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences 1991, a Member of the Japan Academy in 1995, and a Member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina in 2005.

In addition, he was elected President of the International Immunopharmacology Society, the International Cytokine Society, and the Japanese Society for Immunology. He is also an Honorary Member of the American Association of Immunologists and the American Society of Hematology. He is involved in several professional activities including being a former President of the 14th International Congress for the Society of Immunology. He is also an editor and a member of the editorial board of several international journals in his fields of specialization and selection committee member for a number of international prizes.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2017 -مجمع اللغة العربية الأردني

Arabic Language Academy of Jordan

The establishment of an Arabic Language Academy in Jordan was envisaged as early as the 1960s when the Jordanian Ministry of Education formed the Jordanian Committee for Arabization, Translation and Publication, which embraced the idea of establishing the Academy. After visiting Arabic language academies in Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad, and reviewing their activities, regulations, systems and procedures, the Jordanian Council of Ministers in 1973 approved, in principle, the establishment of the Academy. In 1976, a Royal decree was issued ordering the inception of the Jordanian Arabic Language Academy which commenced its activities at that time. Currently, the Academy comprises 30 active members, in different fields of science and literature, in addition to a number of honorary and supporting members.

The primary objectives of the Academy are to sustain the integrity of the Arabic language, ensure that it keeps pace with modern literary, scientific and artistic requirements, fulfills the needs of community knowledge, and revive Arabic and Islamic heritage. It is also the Academy’s objective to publish unified glossaries of terms in literature, science and arts in collaboration with educational, scientific, linguistic and cultural institutions in Jordan and abroad.

In order to achieve these objectives, the Jordanian Arabic Language Academy has exerted inexorable efforts in translating sciences and technology, transferring terms and introducing Arabization in higher education as a prelude towards implementing Arabized science and technology in education throughout the Arab World. In addition, the Academy issues the periodical, Journal of the Jordanican Arabic Language Academy.

The Academy also prepares research and studies pertinent to the Arabic language and encourages writings, translations, and publications on the Arabic language and related issues, in addition to publishing new terminologies, holding conferences and collaborating with universities and other scientific and educational institutions in Jordan and abroad. The Academy also contributed to the initiative of the “Protection of Arabic Language Legislation”.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2017 -رضوان نائف السيد-

Professor Ridwan Al-Sayyid

Ridwan Al-Sayed received his Alimiyyah Certificate (equivalent to Bachelor) from the College of Usul Al-Din in Al-Azhar University in 1970, and a State Doctorate in Philosophy from the Department of Religious Studies at TÜbingen University in Germany in 1977. He joined the academic staff of the Lebanese University for the next forty years, advancing from lecturer to Assistant Professor and becoming a full Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Arts in 1989. He served as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Islamic Studies at Sana’a University in Yemen (1989-1991), the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the College of Law at Harvard University (1993-1994; 1997; 2002), and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago (1994; 1995) in the USA, the College of Theology at Salzburg University in Austria (1994), the Department of Comparative Theology and Anthropology at the University of Bamberg in Germany (2001), and the Institute of Islamic World Studies at Shaikh Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates (2012-2014). He is currently a professor emeritus at the Lebanese University.

Professor Radwan Al-Sayed is an eminent scholar, who has enriched the Arabic and Islamic libraries with his books, studies, and research that reflect his insights and thorough knowledge of Arabic and Islamic religious heritage, deep knowledge of modern research methodologies, and ability to pursue detailed analysis and coordination between the origins of Islamic political thought and contemporary Arabic/Islamic reality. He verified nine books pertaining to Islamic heritage and authored twelve other books, of which he translated five.

Professor Al-Sayed owns an imposing teaching experience both at the undergraduate and the postgraduate levels. This includes teaching the: origins of Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic theology, Qur’anic studies, Islamic history and sociology, Islamic philosophy, interpreters’ methods, modern Islamic thought, orientalists input, etc .

Apart from serving as a Professor of Islamic studies at the Lebanese University, Professor Al-Sayed held several other tasks during his career. He was an Acting Director of the Arab Development Institute in Beirut (1982-1985), and a Director of the High Institute for Islamic Studies (1985-1988; 1994-2000). He also served as an Editorial Secretary of the Islamic Thought journal (1970-1972), a Chief Editor of Arab Thought magazine (1979-1985), and a Co-editor of Al-Ijtihad journal (1988-2004). He has also made significant contributions in many conferences and seminars in the Arab World, Europe and the USA, in addition to his translations, journal articles and contributions in many cultural dialogues in various mass media.

He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Arab Thought Foundation, a Founding Member of the Deanship of Shari’a College in Beirut, an Active Member of the Royal Jordanian Al-Albait Academy, a Member of the German Orientalists Society, and of the Board of Directors of Al-Maqasid Islamic Society in Lebanon, and the Lebanese Universities’ Council.

Professor Al-Sayed was awarded Abdulhamid Shoman Prize for Islamic Studies in 1985, Abdulhadi Al-Dibs Prize for Distinguished Research in the field of Islamic Studies in 1997, and Al-Khwarizmi Prize for the best contribution in Islamic Studies in 1998.

 

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2017 - خادم الحرمين الشريفين-

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud

Salman Bin Abdulaziz grew up in Riyadh and received his early tutelage at the hands of many religious scholars and shaikhs. At the same time, he benefited from the close attention and guidance of King Abdulaziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia, who provided to his children a personally monitored education. He received a formal education at Riyadh-based Princes’ School, where he studied religion and modern sciences. He also completed the reading of the holy Qur’an, an achievement celebrated by his school in 1945.

King Salman was appointed in 1954 as a Deputy Governor of Riyadh Region when he was just nineteen years of age. In 1955, a Royal Decree was issued appointing him Governor of Riyadh Region. In 2011, he was decreed as a Minister of Defense; and in 2012, a Royal Decree was issued appointing him a Crown Prince, a Deputy Premier, and a Defense Minister. In 2015, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman Bin Abdulaziz, was proclaimed King of Saudi Arabia.

King Salman Bin Abdulaziz accords tremendous consideration to humanitarian and cultural issues both inside and outside Saudi Arabia, and sponsored numerous cultural projects. Among the institutions and cultural/social societies, which he chairs, are the Board of Directors of King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives and King Fahad National Library. He has also chaired the High Commission for Development of Riyadh and the High Executive Committee for the Development of Dir’iya. He is also an Honorary President of the Charitable Society for Memorization of the Holy Quran in Riyadh Region. Besides, King Salman headed several humanitarian societies and commissions whose activities extend beyond Saudi Arabia. These include the Donations Committee for Distressed Inhabitants of Suez in 1956, the Principal Committee for Donations to Algeria in 1956, the Public Donations Committee for Jordanian Martyrs’ Families in 1967, the Public Relief Committee for Pakistani Sufferers during the India-Pakistan war in 1973, the Popular Committee for Supporting the War Effort in Egypt in 1973, and the Popular Committee for Supporting the War Effort in Syria in 1973.

 

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.