Moungi Bawendi’s extraordinary career a source of inspiration and pride for ENIT students

Tunis: The extraordinary career of 2023 Nobel laureate in chemistry, Moungi Bawendi, has become a source of inspiration and pride for the students of the National Engineering School of Tunis (ENIT), who flocked to the university’s auditorium on Wednesday to attend a lecture in English by this illustrious pioneer of research on the occasion of his visit to Tunisia.

Speaking to reporters, on the sidelines of the lecture, Bawendi said he was honoured to have been awarded the insignia of the Grand Officer of the Order of the Republic by President Kais Saied.

‘I firmly believe that education and teaching have an important place in Tunisia,” he said, adding that these two sectors are the only guarantees of a better future for young Tunisians.

Bawendi urged young people to work hard, persevere and be creative. ‘These are the keys to success in life,” he said.

Brilliant and modest, the 2023 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, son of the late mathematician Salah Bawendi, considers himself a citizen of the world thanks to
his three nationalities (Tunisian, French and American).

‘This prize is a great honour, but also a great responsibility towards young people, because I hope to use my experience to encourage Tunisian students and give them more hope,” he added.

Moungi Bawendi, born in Paris on March 15, 1961, is a Tunisian-French-American chemist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, USA. He is one of the pioneers of quantum dots research and one of the most cited chemists in the world.

He is a member of two of the oldest learned societies in the United States, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2006, he received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, given by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse