Keiji Maruoka (Kyoto University)

Professor Keiji Maruoka was born in 1953 in Mie, Japan. He graduated from Kyoto University (1976) and received his Ph.D. (1980) from University of Hawaii (Thesis Director: Prof. H. Yamamoto). He became an assistant professor of Nagoya University (1980) and promoted to a lecturer (1985) and an associate professor (1990) there. He moved to Hokkaido University as a full professor (1995–2001), a full professor of chemistry in Kyoto University (2000–2019), and currently is a specially-appointed professor in Kyoto University since 2019. He is also a part-time chair professor of Guangdong University of Technology. Recently, he was awarded the Inoue Prize for Science (2000), the Ichimura Prize for Science (2002), Synthetic Organic Chemistry Award of Japan (2003), Nagoya Silver Medal (2004), the Green and Sustainable Chemistry Award (2006), the Award by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2006), the Japan Chemical Society Award (2007), Molecular Chirality Award (2007), Novartis Lectureship Award (2007/2008), Chunichi Cultural Prize (2010), Arthur C. Cope Scholar Awards (2011), Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon (2011; National Prize from The Japanese Emperor), Humboldt Research Award (2011), Torey Science & Technology Award (2012), Noyori Prize (2016), Japan Academy Prize (2018), and Fujiwara Award (2022). He is an Editor-in-Chief of The Chemical Record, a co-chair of Asian JOC, an editor of Tetrahedron Lett., and is a member of the international advisory editorial board of ChemComm, Acc. Chem. Res., Org. Biomol. Chem., Chemistry-Asian J., The Open Org. Chem. J., and Adv. Synth. Catal. He has a wide range of research interests in synthetic organic chemistry, and his current research interests include the practical asymmetric organocatalysis using high-performance organocatalysts including chiral C2-symmetric phase-transfer catalysts, and new radical chemistry, etc.