We are excited to announce that six talented researchers and educators joined the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry faculty on July 1, 2025. Please join us in welcoming them to the department! Detailed profiles of each new faculty member will be shared in the near future.
Professor Jazmin Aguilar-Romero – Previously a postdoctoral researcher in the Lamb lab at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Aguilar-Romero joined the department as an Assistant Professor of Teaching. At UCLA, research in the Aguilar-Romero group will focus on improving students’ sense of belonging in organic chemistry courses. Projects in the group will include forming effective learning communities in large-enrollment courses, integrating a course-based undergraduate research experience into organic chemistry lab courses, and improving Latine student performance as UCLA moves toward becoming a Hispanic-Serving Institution. Aguilar-Romero looks forward to collaborating with UCLA faculty, students, and research centers.
Professor Thomas Fay – Before joining the UCLA faculty as an Assistant Professor, Fay previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Aix-Marseille Université (2024–2025) and before that, UC Berkeley (2021–2024) after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Oxford (2017–2021). At UCLA, research in the Fay group will focus on the development of theory and computational tools to understand quantum dynamics of light-induced processes in molecules and materials. The research group will work on a fascinating range of quantum phenomena in electron and energy transfer in chemistry, such as in biological photosynthesis and photocatalysis. Research in the group will also delve into the enigmatic relation between molecular chirality and electron spin, and how this can be harnessed for applications ranging from quantum information science to enantioselective catalysis. [Website: https://faygroupucla.github.io BlueSky: @tompfay.bsky.social]
Professor Kalli Kappel – Before joining the UCLA faculty as an Assistant Professor, Kappel was an HHMI Hanna Gray Fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. At UCLA, the Kappel Lab will work on developing predictive sequence-structure-function models of RNA, proteins, and their interactions by combining high-throughput experiments, machine learning, and computational biophysical methods. Research in the lab will focus especially on understanding how structure within human cells, at multiple length scales – from molecular conformations, to formation of higher-order assemblies, to subcellular localization – impacts molecular and cellular function, and how this goes awry in disease. [website: https://sites.google.com/view/kappellab/ X/Twitter: @KalliKappel, Bluesky: @kallikappel.bsky.social]
Professor Steffen Lindert – Prior to joining the UCLA faculty as an Associate Professor, Lindert was a faculty member at The Ohio State University. At UCLA, research in the Lindert group will focus on the development and application of computational techniques for modeling biological systems, with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of biomolecular processes, predicting protein structure with the use of sparse experimental data, engineering proteins, and discovering new drugs. [website: https://lindertlab.chem.ucla.edu/, X/Twitter: @LindertLab]
Professor Antonio Tinoco Valencia – Before joining the UCLA faculty as an Assistant Professor, Tinoco Valencia was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Emily Balskus at Harvard University. At UCLA, the Tinoco lab will focus on the discovery and engineering of the chemistry occurring in microbiomes. The Tinoco research group will apply methods and tools from organic chemistry, enzymology, directed evolution, and microbiology to discover new microbial genes, enzymes, and metabolites, expand the chemistry of microbiomes, and deepen our understanding of the chemical ecology in the human gut and oral microbiomes, and in environmental microbial communities. The group’s research efforts will ultimately elucidate how microbial chemistry influences human biology and ecosystems, and will create innovative approaches that will advance the fields of chemistry, microbiology, and engineering. The Tinoco group website to be launched soon! [X/Twitter: @AntonioTinocoV]
Professor Patrick Wilson – Before joining the UCLA faculty as an Assistant Professor of Teaching, Wilson served as a postdoctoral fellow at the STEM Education Innovation and Research Institute (SEIRI). At UCLA, the Wilson research group focuses on developing and examining ethical inquiry as a practice of care in chemical education. Wilson’s research program involves collaborating with chemistry educators to develop pedagogical tools that integrate ethical inquiry into undergraduate curricula. This work aims to foster moral and intellectual development in undergraduate students during their formative academic years, encouraging them to apply their scientific expertise in service of the public good.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.
