Hermann Emil Fischer , Emil Fischer (9 October 1852, Euskirchen, Rhine Province–15 July 1919) was a German chemist and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1902. He is known for discovering the Fischer esterification.

Fischer attended the University of Bonn in 1872, but switched to the University of Strasbourg in 1872.
He earned his doctorate in 1874 with his study of phthalein and was appointed to a position at the university.
In 1875 von Baeyer was asked to succeed Liebig at the University of Munich and Fischer went there with him to become an assistant in organic chemistry.
In 1878 Fischer qualified as a Privatdozent at Munich, where he was appointed Associate Professor of Analytical Chemistry in 1879. In the same year he was offered, but refused, the Chair of Chemistry at Aachen.
In 1881 he was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the University of Erlangen and in 1883 he was asked by the Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik to direct its scientific laboratory. Fischer, however, whose father had now made him financially independent, preferred academic work.
In 1885 he was asked to become Professor of Chemistry at the University of Würzburg and here he remained until 1892, when he was asked to succeed A. W. Hofmann in the Chair of Chemistry at the University of Berlin. Here he remained until his death in 1919.