Caltech Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

The Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Caltech invites applications for a faculty position at all levels and in all areas of chemistry, biochemistry, and chemical engineering.

Interested candidates should apply at
applications.caltech.edu/job/chemistry

Deadline: Dec. 1, 2025.

#ThrowbackThursday to last week's Shaved Ice Social! This tradition makes time for incoming undergraduate students to meet and chat with our faculty, grad students and staff on the Beckman Mall while staying cool with Kona Ice. 🍧

We hope your first week at Caltech is going smoothly, undergrads!

Caltech Announces Newest Cohort of Leadership Chairs and Named Professorships This year Caltech recognizes four faculty members with leadership chairs and six with named professorships.

Ten Caltech faculty members begin the 2025-2026 academic year with newly bestowed honors: six with named professorships, one of the Institute's highest honors, and four with distinguished leadership chairs for administrative positions.

www.caltech.edu/about/news/l...

Scott Cushing Named a Moore Inventor Fellow The assistant professor of chemistry is the fourth Caltech faculty member to be named to the now-complete list of scientist-inventors

Congrats to Prof. Scott Cushing on being named a Moore Inventor Fellow!

The distinction comes with three years of funding, which Cushing plans to use to advance his work on a new generation of wearable sensors.

cce.caltech.edu/news-and-eve...

Celebrating Richard Flagan's 50 years of service to @caltech.edu! Rick arrived in 1975 intending to study combustion chemistry and ended up playing an enormously influential role in developing new instrumentation to quantify atmospheric aerosol and helping to mitigate air pollution in LA and beyond.

Caltech Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholar Recognized by the American Chemical Society for Outstanding Leadership Caltech's Chuqi Lu, Camila Suarez, and Jacob Rothbaum were recognized by the American Chemical Society for excellence in mentoring, inclusion, and research safety through the ACS Graduate Student and ...

The American Chemical Society (@acs.org) has recognized 2 graduate students & 1 postdoc from CCE for their outstanding contributions to mentoring, inclusion, and research safety.

Congrats to Chuqi Lu, Camila Suarez and Jacob Rothbaum on this honor! 🎉

Learn more about the awardees: bit.ly/46J3vDA

Neil Garg, Organic Chemist, Author, Startup Innovator, and Educational Leader An oral history with CCE alumnus Neil Garg

Alumni Spotlight: Neil Garg (PhD ’05)
In this Caltech Heritage Project interview, Neil Garg shares his journey from his graduate experience in the early days of the Stoltz lab to becoming a pioneering educator, startup founder, and faculty leader at UCLA.
heritageproject.caltech.edu/interviews-u...

Meet Allen Lee, our newest Facilities and Stockroom Manager!

Allen brings 29 yrs of experience as Lab Manager in the Rees Lab. His deep knowledge of Caltech’s systems and his collaborative approach will be invaluable during this transition. He will be working alongside Joe Drew through Jan. 2026.

Caltech Biochemists Uncover New Rules of Mitochondrial Protein Import Scientists in the lab of Shu-ou Shan have revised a long-standing biochemical model of protein delivery to the powerhouses of the cell

The Shan lab reveal that up to 20% of mitochondrial proteins begin entering the powerhouse of the cell while still being made—a process called cotranslational import. This discovery reshapes understanding of protein delivery & opens doors to therapeutic strategies. cce.caltech.edu/news-and-eve...

Please join us in welcoming our newest Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Johannes Morstein!

Johannes grew up in Rysum and Bremen, Germany. His group is working on Lipid and Membrane Chemical Biology.

📸 A few gems from our archives—recognize any faces?

These lab photos look back at the moments that helped build the foundation of where we are today. #ThrowbackThursday

Congrats to our faculty members who have been recognized with ACS 2026 National Awards!

🔶 Jonas Peters: ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry
🔷 Garnet Chan: ACS Award in Theoretical Chemistry
🔶 Greg Fu: Arthur C. Cope Award
🔷 Brian Stoltz: Ernest Guenther Award in the Chemistry of Natural Products

Had a pleasure introducing REyes, a fully autonomous, open-source electron diffraction suite at #ACSFall2025. Many thanks to the organizers @olexandr.bsky.social and #CASFutureLeaders for the opportunity
#ReciprocalEyes #chrmsky @caltechcce.bsky.social @hoseanelson.bsky.social @nsf-ccas.bsky.social

Last Friday, the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Council hosted its 2nd Annual ChE Carnival. Students gathered in Tournament Park to play games, tie-dye shirts and even grilled up tasty hot dogs and burgers. We can't wait for the next one!

A Data Science-Guided Approach for the Development of Nickel-Catalyzed Homo-Diels–Alder Reactions The Ni-catalyzed homo-Diels–Alder (hDA) reaction represents a convergent but under-investigated approach to preparing bridged bicyclic ring systems. Using the kraken monophosphine descriptor library, ...

Some work from my postdoc in collaboration with the Reisman lab is now out in JACS! We developed Ni-catalyzed [2+2+2] homo-Diels–Alder cycloadditions guided by data science, which gives access to some really cool-looking molecules! doi.org/10.1021/jacs...

Optical Control of Membrane Viscosity Modulates ER-to-Golgi Trafficking The lipid composition of cellular membranes is highly dynamic and undergoes continuous remodeling, affecting the biophysical properties critical to biological function. Here, we introduce an optical a...

Excited to share our new @pubs.acs.org paper! We engineered cells with ~10% photolipids in the ER membrane. This enabled optical control of membrane viscosity to study its impact on ER→Golgi protein transport. @dirktrauner.bsky.social @noemijimenezrojo.bsky.social

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

On the beautiful @Caltech campus with two new professors @reisenbauerlab.bsky.social and @arianemora.bsky.social headed to start their careers in Vienna. Prospective graduate students take note! This is the future of #enzymes #proteinengineering. @caltechcce.bsky.social @caltech.edu

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Doug Rees as the new Executive Officer for Biochemistry and Karthish Manthiram as the new Executive Officer for Chemical Engineering.

We also extend our heartfelt gratitude to Shu-ou Shan and Zhen-Gang Wang for their outstanding service in this role.

Check out the stunning cover featuring recent paper from @hoseanelson.bsky.social Lab, led by our one and only @daverdude.bsky.social! He discovered an entire class of natural products using microED powered by arrayED

@caltech.edu @caltechcce.bsky.social @uclacb.bsky.social

#FlashbackFriday to May's Spring into STEM event, hosted by Caltech Women in Chemistry! Girl Scouts gathered on the Beckman Mall to participate in science demonstrations & lab tours organized by CCE students, such as the Caltech Chemistry Club, along with other academic divisions.

Enzymatic Stereodivergent Synthesis of Azaspiro[2.y]alkanes Azaspiro[2.y]alkanes are increasingly valuable scaffolds in pharmaceutical drug discovery; however, an asymmetric catalytic method for their synthesis remains unknown. Here, we present a stereodiverge...

I'm really proud of this work by Jae Kennemur and Yueming Long. #Enzymes rock, with some help from #directed evolution to do chemistry not known in nature (and really hard for humans, too). @caltechcce.bsky.social
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Happy 102nd Birthday to Nobel Laureate and the John G. Kirkwood & Arthur A. Noyes Professor of Chemistry, Rudy Marcus!

Today, we celebrate a renowned figure in theoretical chemistry — and the Inaugural Meeting of the Marcus Center for Theoretical Chemistry in his honor.

Two Alumni Honored with Prizes for Innovative Usage of AI Two Caltech alumni are honored with the first annual Chen Institute and Science Prize for AI Accelerated Research.

Alumnus Zhuoran Qiao (PhD '23) received the grand prize of the inaugural Chen Institute and SciencePrize for AI Accelerated Research for his innovative usage of artificial intelligence technology to accelerate scientific discovery in biochemistry.

Congrats, Zhuoran!

cce.caltech.edu/news-and-eve...

Happy Friday! We’re wrapping up the week with a poster session from today's Frontiers in Experimental Physical Chemistry Symposium.

The James LuValle Award recognizes outstanding service in fostering inclusivity and advancing community within CCE.

This year, we honor 3 exceptional individuals whose dedication has made a lasting impact on our division:

🔸 Emily Chen
🔹 Dennis Ko
🔸 Jordan Thompson

Congrats to our 2025 recipients!

Novel Approaches for Protecting the Inner Ear from Hearing Loss Andre Hoelz and Rick Friedman, the skull base surgeon who operated on Hoelz's auditory nerve, have received a Curebound grant to pioneer new ways of protecting the inner ear against hearing loss.

Over the last five years, Hoelz, Friedman, and other scientists in the field have identified a gene that makes people more susceptible to hearing loss and started exploring ways to strengthen the inner ear hair cells to protect hearing.

www.caltech.edu/about/news/p...

Making Plastic from Carbon Dioxide, Water, and Electricity A new two-loop system developed by Caltech shows a path to convert the abundant greenhouse gas into an industrially valuable commodity

What if a machine could suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, run it through a series of chemical reactions, and essentially spit out industrially useful plastic?

www.caltech.edu/about/news/m...

New Hybrid Quantum–Classical Computing Approach Used to Study Chemical Systems A quantum device can identify key values related to the movements of electrons within chemical systems, enabling classical computers to solve for ground-state energies with less heavy lifting

Caltech professor of chemistry Sandeep Sharma and colleagues from IBM and the RIKEN Center for Computational Science in Japan are giving us a glimpse of the future of computing.

www.caltech.edu/about/news/n...

Caltech Comes Together to Celebrate 131st Commencement Caltech sends its graduates off with a stirring celebration.

On Friday, June 13th, Caltech honored its 614 graduates with 619 degrees: 250 bachelor's degrees, 148 master's degrees, and 221 doctoral degrees.

www.caltech.edu/about/news/c...

That's a wrap, Class of 2025! #Caltech2025