Schaap Endowed Chair in Organic Chemistry

The Wayne State University Chemistry Department is delighted to announce the appointment of David Crich as the A. Paul and Carol C. Schaap Professor of Chemistry. Prof. Crich is a world-renowned organic chemist, whose most recent position was that of Distinguished Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Born and raised in Derbyshire, England, he received his B.Sc. degree in Chemistry with French from the University of Surrey, UK, in 1981. He went on to join the group of Sir Derek Barton at the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles (ICSN) in Gif sur Yvette, France. Under Barton he learned the rudiments of free radical chemistry and was responsible for the development of the Barton decarboxylation reaction, for which he was awarded the degree of Docteur ès Sciences by the Université de Paris XI (Orsay) in 1984 (Ph.D.). Following another year at the ICSN as a post doctoral fellow with Professors Barton and Potier, he took up a "new blood" lectureship in chemistry in the Christopher Ingold Laboratories of University College London (UCL). After five years at UCL working in the areas of diastereoselective free radical chemistry, acyl radical chemistry, enantioselective synthesis of -disubstituted amino acids, and carbohydrate chemistry, Crich moved to the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) as Associate Professor in 1990. He was promoted to Full Professor in 1994, and Distinguished Professor in 1999.

During his tenure at UCL and UIC, Crich received a number of awards, being named Laureat of the Academy of Sciences (France) in 1989, and University Scholar of the University of Illinois in 1992. Crich received the Corday Morgan Medal in 1990 and the Tate and Lyle Carbohydrate Chemistry Medal in 1995, both from the Royal Society of Chemistry. Crich was Fellow of the A. P. Sloan Foundation from 1994-1996, and of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 2006. He served as visiting Professor at the University of Aix-Marseille III in 1992, and at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie, in 2006. In January 2007 the degree of honorary Doctor of Science was conferred on Crich by the University of Derby (UK). David Crich is the author of more than 250 peer-reviewed publications in the field of organic chemistry, and his work has resulted in the award of numerous patents. His current research focuses on the areas of synthetic methodology development, with emphasis of stereocontrolled oligosaccharide synthesis and, most recently, new ligation methods.