Biography

George Oláh (born on May 22, 1927, in Budapest – died on March 8, 2017, in Beverly Hills) was a Hungarian-born American chemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1994 for his contributions to carbocation chemistry. He was also the recipient of the prestigious Hungarian Corvin Chain and the Széchenyi Grand Prize. Oláh is known for developing the direct methanol fuel cell, which attracted significant interest as a potential solution to the problem of global warming.

Career

He completed his secondary education at the Piarist High School in Budapest. Following this, he studied chemistry at the Budapest University of Technology, where he earned his doctorate in 1949. In the following years, he taught at the university. He had a particular interest in organic chemistry and became a research assistant to Géza Zemplén, the most prestigious professor of organic chemistry in Hungary. During the 1950s, Oláh began publishing his research, and his early studies garnered international attention. From 1954 to 1956, he was the head of the Department of Organic Chemistry and co-director of the newly established Central Chemical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, alongside Géza Schay. In 1965, Oláh received a job offer in Cleveland, United States, at Case Western Reserve University. In 1977, he was appointed scientific director of the university's Hydrocarbon Research Institute. From 1991, he served as the director of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute in Los Angeles. The most significant result of his research was in the study of carbocations. On October 12, 1994, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Oláh György would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in this field, which he received on December 10.