Moroccan researchers Said Yaktin and Khalil Ben Haj Amin won the 41st edition of Kuwait Prize, awarded by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) to honor and recognize the lifetime achievements of Arab scientists.
Yaktin received the humanities, arts, and literature prize under the theme of “Literature and art in the Arab world – Specialization in narrative sciences,” for which 43 applicants applied.
Yaktin is a professor in the Faculty of Literature and Humanities at Mohammed V University in Rabat, and won the prize for his work in narrative, literary theory, critical literature, Arab-Islamic narrative heritage, and popular culture.
Khalil Ben Haj Amin was honored for his work in applied sciences under the theme of “clean and sustainable energy technologies,” for which 30 candidates applied, in recognition of his battery technology research and pioneering contribution to the applied sciences of clean and sustainable energy technology. Ben Haj Amin leads the battery technology team at the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory.
The prize in the category of “Human Genetics” was awarded to Saudi researcher Faouzan Sami Al-Kurai, while the winner of the category “Economic, Financial, and Banking Sciences – Specialization in Econometrics” was Lebanese researcher Elie Tamer, who is currently a professor at Harvard University.
The prize for the category of “Science and technology of nanomaterials and their applications” went to Tunisian researcher Mohamed Alhadi Omar Almatoussi, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Florida.
The Kuwait Prize was created in 1979 in line with the Kuwait Foundation’s objectives of supporting scientific research in its various disciplines and encouraging Arab scientists and researchers.