Donna Blackmond
Scripps Research
Biography
Donna Blackmond was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and she received a PhD in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. She has held professorships in chemistry and in chemical engineering in the US (University of Pittsburgh), Germany (Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung), and the UK (University of Hull; Imperial College London), and she has worked in the pharmaceutical industry (Merck).
She is professor of chemistry and the John C Martin Endowed Chair in Chemistry at Scripps Research, La Jolla, California. She holds joint US/UK citizenship. Professor Blackmond is an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
She has been recognised internationally for her research, including the Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society, the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Award for Outstanding Women Scientists, the Arthur C Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, the IUPAC Award for Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering, and the Humboldt-Forschungspreis from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Professor Blackmond’s research focuses on mechanistic studies of organic reactions, including asymmetric catalysis, and on the origin of biological homochirality. She has been invited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to speak at two Nobel Workshops, “On the Origin of Life” (2006) and “Chiral Matter” (2021), and she gives lectures on the “handedness” of biological building blocks at local and international science festivals for the general public.
RSC journal affiliations
Advisory Board Member, Reaction Chemistry and Engineering