Gabor A. Somorjai was born in Budapest, Hungary, on May 4, l935. He was a fourth year student of Chemical Engineering at the Technical University in Budapest in l956 at the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution. He left Hungary and emigrated to the United States, where he received his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in l960. He became a U.S. citizen in l962.

After graduation, he joined the IBM research staff in Yorktown Heights, New York, where he remained until l964. At that time, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. In l967, he was named Associate Professor, and in l972 promoted to Professor. Concurrent with his faculty appointment, he is also a Faculty Senior Scientist in the Materials Sciences Division, and Group Leader of the Surface Science and Catalysis Program at the Center for Advanced Materials, at the E.O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Professor Somorjai has educated more than 115 Ph.D. students and 200 postdoctoral fellows. He is the author of more than 750 scientific papers in the fields of surface chemistry, heterogeneous catalysis, and solid state chemistry. He has written three textbooks, Principles of Surface Chemistry, Prentice Hall, l972; Chemistry in Two Dimensions: Surfaces, Cornell University Press, 1981; and Introduction to Surface Chemistry and Catalysis, Wiley-Interscience, 1994; and a monograph, Adsorbed Monolayers on Solid Surfaces, Springer-Verlag, l979.

His honors include the following:
2007 Langmuir Prize from the American Physical Society
2006 Remsen Award from the Maryland Section of the ACS
Honorary Fellow, Cardiff University
2003 UCB College of Chemistry Commencement Address
Cotton Medal, Texas A&M University
Docteur Honoris Causa, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
2002 National Medal of Science
Appointed University Professor of the 10 campuses of the University of California
2001 Docteur Honoris Causa, University of Manchester, United Kingdom
2000 American Chemical Society Award for Creative Research in Homogeneous or Heterogeneous Catalysis
Linus Pauling Medal for Outstanding Accomplishment in Chemistry, American Chemical Society, Puget Sound, Portland and Oregon Section
Docteur Honoris Causa, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
1999 Docteur Honoris Causa, J¨®zsef Attila University, Szeged, Hungary
1998 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Wolf Foundation
Docteur Honoris Causa, Universit¨¤ degli Studi di Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy
1997 Von Hippel Award, Materials Research Society
1995 Chemical Pioneer, American Institute of Chemists
1994 Adamson Award in Surface Chemistry, American Chemical Society
1992 Docteur Honoris Causa, Universit¨¦ Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
1990 Honorary Membership in Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Docteur Honoris Causa, Universit¨¦ Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France
1989 Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry, American Chemical Society
Senior Distinguished Scientist Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
E.W. Mueller Award, University of Wisconsin
Docteur Honoris Causa, Technical University, Budapest, Hungary
1986 Henry Albert Palladium Medal
1983 Elected to membership, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1982 Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Distinguished Scholar for Exchange with China
1981 Colloid and Surface Chemistry Award, American Chemical Society
1979 Elected to membership, National Academy of Sciences
1978 Miller Professorship, University of California, Berkeley
1977 Emmett Award, American Catalysis Society
1976 Kokes Award, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
Elected Fellow, American Physical Society
1969 Guggenheim Fellowship
Visiting Fellow, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England