Kalju Kahn

Kalju Kahn is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He specializes in Chemical Education and Biochemistry, with a focus on computational chemistry tools for biochemical problems.

Education: B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Tartu (Estonia), Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Missouri (1998). Postdoctoral research under Prof. T.C. Bruice preceded his role at UCSB since 2001.

Research interests include molecular recognition, enzyme catalysis, and protein structure-dynamics-function relationships. His computational methods address fundamental biochemistry questions through tools like focal point analysis and quantum chemistry modeling.

Publications span computational studies of molecular energetics, enzyme structures, and reaction mechanisms, emphasizing theoretical approaches to biochemical systems.

Labs/Teams: Maintains a research group (http://www.chem.ucsb.edu/~kalju/) exploring computational biochemistry applications.