Kendall N. Houk

Professor Kendall N. Houk is the Saul Winstein Chair in Organic Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on theoretical and computational chemistry to solve problems in organic and bio-organic reactions, including enzyme mechanisms, stereoselective catalysis, pericyclic reactions, and nanomachine dynamics. He collaborates extensively with experimental groups globally and has contributed to groundbreaking studies in enzyme design and reaction mechanism analysis.

• Elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2010)
• Foreign Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences (2021)
• Winner of ACS Roger Adams Award (2021), Foresight Institute Prize (2021), and RSC Horizon Prize (2021)

His research group specializes in computational modeling of chemical reactions, with recent work on:

• Organocatalytic Diels-Alderases and [6+4] cycloadditions
• Diradicaloid coupling mechanisms
• Nanomachine dynamics and molecular recognition
• Breaking down PFAS 'forever chemicals'

Scientific awards include:

• Prix Franco-Americain (2024)
• RSC Horizon Prize: Bioorganic Chemistry (2021)
• Robert Robinson Award (2012)

He mentors PhD students and postdocs, including Lisa Boatner, Billy Treacy, and Panpan Chen (UCLA Postdoctoral Award, 2024). His group collaborates with institutions like David Baker’s Lab (University of Washington), Peking University, and Shanghai Jiao-Tong University.