Craig Merlic, PhD

Craig is a synthetic organic chemist whose research focuses on applications of transition metal organometallic chemistry to organic synthesis and extends from catalysis to synthesis of new chemotherapeutic agents.

His most recent work focuses on copper, iridium and palladium catalyzed cross coupling reactions. Previous research focused on developing new chemistry derived from chromium arene and carbene complexes.

In addition to awards for his research, Craig has received awards for his teaching and educational endeavors. He created award-winning internet-based educational projects for course management systems and teaching nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Craig is very active promoting research safety at UCLA, the University of California system, and universities across the nation. In 2014 he was appointed as the Executive Director of the UC Center for Laboratory Safety that has ongoing projects to improve research safety policies, procedures, and training based on scientific studies (https://cls.ucla.edu). Through the Center he also manages the Safety Training Consortium that provides safety training courses to more than fifty universities across the nation (http://safety-consortium.org). He even directed an information technology group creating safety software tools for use at all ten University of California campuses.

Craig obtained his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of California, Davis in 1982 and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry as a Hertz Foundation Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1988. After a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship at Princeton University he joined the faculty in the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 1989.