Michael Hopkins

Michael Hopkins is a Professor in Chemistry and the College.

As vice provost, Michael leads the Office’s work on academic space allocation, long-range space planning, and capital planning. He also serves as the Office’s liaison for all information technology matters to ensure that, in collaboration with other academic and administrative leaders, the University’s research infrastructure is as robust as possible. Additionally, Mike supports the development of new initiatives in the sciences, serves as liaison to the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, and promotes faculty for high visibility awards and recognition.

Prior to joining the Office of the Provost in 2017, Mike served for four years as deputy dean of the Physical Sciences Division, where he assisted with long-range planning, oversight of the division’s graduate programs, and the development of the division’s graduate student recruiting strategy. He served for six years as chair of the Department of Chemistry, during which he led planning for the Gordon Center for Integrative Science, the Searle Chemistry Laboratory, and the Searle Cleanroom, of which he was the founding director.

Michael’s research lies in three areas: the exploration of new light-absorbing compounds with applications in organic synthesis and the production of renewable fuels from solar energy; the development of new methods for organizing nanomaterials on surfaces; and the discovery of inorganic X-ray contrast agents. He earned his BA from the University of California at San Diego and PhD from the California Institute of Technology, and was then a postdoctoral scholar at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1999 he was a member of the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, from which he received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a recipient of fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan, David and Lucile Packard, and Camille and Henry Dreyfus foundations; and recipient of the Arthur L. Kelly Prize for Exceptional Faculty Service.