A Caltech Nobel Laureate Lands in the Right Place at the Right Time

When Caltech chalked up its 28th Nobel prize last year, the challenges were just beginning for its newest Nobel laureate, Ahmed H. Zewail.

The chemist, who received the world’s most prestigious medal along with a check for $960,000 from the Royal Swedish Academy in December, shared some of his post-prize experiences with the Associates of Caltech at the annual black-tie dinner Friday.

“Everyone claims you,” said Zewail. “And they expect you to know everything about everything: world health, world hunger, what to do about Zambia. There is no ‘master plan’ on the road to the Nobel Prize. It represents a lot of hard work, a passion for that work and . . . being in the right place at the right time. For me, that place was Caltech.”

“Not surprising,” said Caltech professor emeritus Jack Roberts, “Ahmed is a mover and a shaker.” And he is apparently strong on details too: A while back, said Roberts, Zewail was not only instrumental in reorganizing the Caltech transportation department, but saw to it that the drivers now sport blazers with Caltech logos.

Zewail, a U.S. citizen who was born in Egypt, was recently presented with Egypt’s highest honor, the Grand Collar of the Nile. In a visit with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Zewail proposed that the country start a new university for science and technology modeled after Caltech. “Ground-breaking has already taken place and will serve students from throughout the Middle East,” Roberts announced.

This event always attracts an academic A-list. Among the attendees were Doris and Tom Everhart, former Caltech president; Laura and Rudy Marcus, 1992 Nobelist; Laurie and Steven Koonin, Caltech provost; John Glanville, Associates president, who escorted his mother, Nancy Glanville, widow of Caltech trustee James Glanville; and Marjorie and Cornelius Pings, president emeritus of the American Assn. of Universities.

You’d think that a gathering of so many astronomical IQs would be intimidating. But Caltech folks are down to earth. As folks were chatting about journalism at a Caltech bash I attended a couple of years ago, 1992 Nobel laureate Rudy Marcus leaned forward and prefaced a question with, “Forgive my ignorance, but . . .”

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It’s been many a moon since I took a C in the chops and bade good riddance to a course on 17th century poet John Donne and his infernal “metaphysical conceit.” I think it was my senior year at UC Berkeley, and with all due respect to my professor, I never could fathom how a fleabite compared in any way to the act of love. But then, I was a political-science major. That’s probably why, to this day, I get itchy around questions that begin with “compare and contrast.” Then Thursday night at Geffen Playhouse, whom should I encounter, but my old adversary, Donne, suddenly making perfect sense in a play written by a kindergarten teacher.

The opening of Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winner, “Wit,” starring Kathleen Chalfant, was a joint benefit for the Geffen and UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. To borrow a line from the play (and to all you English majors out there, I realize the reference is to Spenser, not Donne): “The Faerie Queene, this is not.”

Chalfant portrays Vivian Bearing, a complex English literature professor whose career has been devoted to the works of Donne. She approaches her terminal ovarian cancer with the same probing intensity she’d bring to the dissection of one of his sonnets.

Some of us still had moist eyes at the post-performance reception with the cast. Anne Cote, executive director of the Jonsson Foundation, said “Wit” is a twist on the real-life drama that plays out every day at the cancer center.

This event marked only the second time the Geffen has collaborated on a benefit with an outside organization. Carole Bayer Sager and Robert A. Daly co-chaired for the playhouse and Meg and Lawrence Kasdan for the Jonsson Cancer Center.

Social Circuits appears every Tuesday. Patt Diroll can be reached at (213) 237-7144 or by e-mail at pattdiroll@earthlink.net.