Ahmed has been an active chemist in the Philadelphia area since 1980. His career began at Wyeth, where he developed a commercial process for the synthesis of Effexor®. The last 20 years of his career were spent at Johnson & Johnson, where he achieved a high level of success, handling more than 50 different projects over those years. While at J&J, he developed the highly-cited and much-used procedure for reductive amination of aldehydes and ketones with sodium triacetoxy-borohydride. He received J&J awards for scientific contributions in 1991, 1994, 1997 and 1999. Importantly, the award received in 1994 was the Philip B. Hofmann Research Award for Excellence in Science. During most of that time he served as an adjunct Full Professor at Drexel University, teaching organic chemistry in the evenings.

Locally, Ahmed served in the Philadelphia Organic Chemists’ Club as Assistant Secretary in 1987, Secretary in 1988, Chair-Elect in 1993 and Chair in 1994. He received the Philadelphia Organic Chemists’ Club Award in 2007.

Nationally, his ACS participation has been significant. He has organized, chaired and presided over multiple symposia. The symposium on reduction featuring H.C. Brown, S. Buchwald, G. Gribble and B. Maryanoff (also a 2009 ACS Fellow from the Philadelphia Local Section) resulted in an ACS Book. In recent years he has been very active in the Division of Organic Chemistry, one of the largest divisions. Some (but not all) of his involvement includes member of the Executive Committee 2004-2005, 2009-2012, Program Chair-Elect 2009-2010, Program Chair 2011-2012, etc. He also served as a member of a National ACS Award Selection Committee.