Prof. Nelson earned a B.S. in Chemistry from University of California at Berkeley in 2005 and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 2013. After postdoctoral training at University of California at Berkeley, Prof. Nelson joined the UCLA faculty in 2015. In 2021 he joined Caltech’s Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Prof. Nelson’s research program is focused on the development of enabling technologies for chemical synthesis. His group focuses on this goal through two primary avenues of research. 1) In their structural chemistry subgroup they develop new electron microscopy techniques that enable the characterization of complex molecules, often unattainable using traditional methods. 2) Their synthetic subgroup focuses on the development of new chemical reactions that will enable the efficient and rapid synthesis of bioactive compounds.

Yi Tang received his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and Material Science from Penn State University. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from California Institute of Technology under the guidance of Prof. David A. Tirrell. After NIH postdoctoral training in Chemical Biology from Prof. Chaitan Khosla at Stanford University, he started his independent career at University of California Los Angeles in 2004. He is currently the Chancellor Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA, and holds joint appointments in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; and Department of Bioengineering. His recent awards include the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Allan P. Colburn Award (2009), the American Chemical Society (ACS) Biochemical Technology Division (BIOT) Young Investigator Award (2011), the ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (2012), the EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2012), NIH DP1 Director Pioneer Award (2012), the ACS Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry (2014) and the Society of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology Charles Thom Award (2019).