The UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry has appointed Soumitra Athavale, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, as the John D. and Edith M. Roberts Term Chair in Organic Chemistry, effective retroactively to November 1, 2023.
Established in 2016 through funds from former Roberts group members, the Roberts family, UCLA faculty members, and the Jung matching funds, the chair honors UCLA alumnus and California Institute of Technology professor John D. (“Jack”) Roberts (1918-2016), who was one of the most influential chemists of the last 80 years, and his wife Edith M. Roberts (1919-2010).
“Soumitra exemplifies the qualities fostered by Jack Roberts,” said Professor Ken Houk, who spearheaded the fundraising campaign to establish the chair. “Modern physical organic chemistry now includes applications of modern spectroscopy, computation, and the study of biological processes and harnessing them for use in chemistry. Jack Roberts would appreciate the ways that Soumitra is advancing further the scope and impact of physical organic chemistry at UCLA.”
An innovative organic chemist, Athavale joined the UCLA faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2023. Before that, he was a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Frances Arnold at the California Institute of Technology. Athavale received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemistry and Biology from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Pune, India. He then joined Professor Scott Denmark’s lab at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and received his Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry in 2019. In 2020, as a solo participant, he was a co-winner of the Merck Compound challenge, which is a global retrosynthesis challenge including over 100 world-leading competing teams. Athavale presented the 2023 John D. and Edith M. Roberts Lecture at UCLA on October 10, 2023.
The Athavale group focuses on synthetic organic chemistry, biomolecular evolution, and chemical biology, researching synthetic chemistry and biocatalysis, the organic chemistry of evolution, fundamental enzyme structure-function relationships, and engineered enzymes as next-generation co-therapeutics.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
