David W.C. MacMillan

Dave MacMillan received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Glasgow, where he worked with Dr. Ernie Colvin. In 1990, he left the UK to begin his doctoral studies under the direction of Professor Larry Overman at the University of California, Irvine. In 1996, he moved to a postdoctoral position with Professor Dave Evans at Harvard University where his studies centered on enantioselective catalysis. He began his independent career at the University of California, Berkeley in July of 1998 before moving to the California Institute of Technology in June of 2000. In 2003, he was promoted to Full Professor at Caltech, before being appointed the Earle C. Anthony Chair of Organic Chemistry in 2004. In 2006, Dave moved to the east coast of the US to take up a position at Princeton University as the A. Barton Hepburn Chair of Chemistry and Director of the Merck Center for Catalysis. He also became the Princeton Chemistry Department Chair in July of 2010. The MacMillan research program is centered on chemical synthesis with specific interests in new reaction development, enantioselective organocatalysis, and the rapid construction of molecular complexity.

Dave has received several awards including the ACS Award for Creative Work in Organic Synthesis (2011), Mukaiyama Award (2007), ISHC Award in Heterocyclic Chemistry (2007), ACS Cope Scholar Award (2007), Thieme-IUPAC Prize in Organic Synthesis (2006), Elias J. Corey Award for Outstanding Original Contribution in Organic Synthesis by a Young Investigator (2005), the Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award (2005), the Corday-Morgan Medal (2005), Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2003), a Sloan Fellowship (2002), and a Woodward Scholarship Award from Harvard University (2001). Dave is currently editor-in-chief of the new RSC journal "Chemical Sciences" and is a member of the Chemical Communications, Tetrahedron, Tetrahedron Letters, Chemistry-an Asian Journal, Advances in Catalysis and Synthesis editorial advisory boards. Dave is a co-founder of Chiromics LLC and is a member of the scientific advisory board of Lexicon pharmaceuticals and a permanent member of the RSRC board (Chemistry SAB) at Merck. Dave is currently a scientific consultant with Merck (worldwide), Amgen (worldwide), Abbott Research Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals, Constellation Pharmaceuticals, and Gilead Research Laboratories.