The New York University Department of Chemistry welcomes Dirk Trauner, who will join the faculty in the fall of 2016!
Dirk comes to us from the University of Munich, but his career has been quite trans-Atlantic. Born in Austria, Dirk earned his undergraduate degree in Berlin and his doctorate in Vienna. He crossed the Atlantic for a postdoctoral fellowship with Sam Danishefsky at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and began his independent career in the United States, earning tenure at UC Berkeley. After 8 years on the faculty in Munich, he will return to New York City.
Professor Trauner has a distinguished career, adorned with awards and accomplishments. Among other honors, he is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and most recently, he is the recipient of the 2016 Emil Fischer Medal and the 2016 Otto Bayer Award for his "pioneering contributions to photopharmacology and chemical optogenetics." The broad objective of research in the Trauner Lab is to "demonstrate the awesome power of chemical synthesis with challenging target molecules and to use it toward the establishment of synthetic biological pathways." In this context, he will build both organic chemistry and neuroscience labs at NYU, establishing an exciting new presence in the field of chemical neuroscience with strong connections at the Center for Neuroscience as well as the Neuroscience Institute at the Langone School of Medicine. Read more about Dirk Trauner's professional history and research on his laboratory website: http://www.cup.uni-muenchen.de/oc/trauner/