Erick M. Carreira has been full Professor at the Organic Chemistry Laboratory of the ETH Zurich since August 1998.

 

Professor Carreira was born in Havana, Cuba in 1963. He obtained a B.S. degree in 1984 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-​Champaign under the supervision of Scott E. Denmark and a Ph.D. degree in 1990 from Harvard University under the supervision of David A. Evans.

After carrying out postdoctoral work with Peter Dervan at the California Institute of Technology through late 1992, he joined the faculty at the same institution as an assistant professor of chemistry and subsequently was promoted to the rank of associate professor of chemistry in the Spring of 1996, and full Professor in Spring 1997.

He then moved to ETH Zürich, Switzerland as a full professor in 1998. 

 

Professor Carreira is a member of both the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is the recipient of the Kharasch Lectureship (University of Chicago), Barluenga Lectureship (Royal Spanish Chemical Society), C. S. Marvel Lectureship (University of Illinois), Lieben Award (Austrian Chemical Society), Ziegler Award Lecture (MPI Mulheim), Tischler Award Lecture (Harvard University), Gassman Award Lecture (University of Minnesota), Yamada Koga Prize (Japanese Chemical Society), Len Owen Lecture (Imperial College London), Gilbert Stork Lecture (Columbia University), A. Cruishank Lecturer (Gordon Research Conferences), Julius Stieglitz Memorial Lecture (University of Chicago), American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry, Nobel Laureate Signature Award, Fresenius Award, a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science, Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award, Merck Young Investigator Award, Eli Lilly Young Investigator Award, Pfizer Research Award, National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Young Investigator Award, the ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, and a Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award.

He is also the recipient of the Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology Annual Award in Teaching and a Richard M. Badger Award in Teaching.

He is co-​founder of three start-​up companies and has been involved in the development of several chemistry education software tools.

In 2019, he was appointed as the editor-​in-chief of Organic Letters, where he had previously served as an associate editor for 18 years. Starting in 2021, he serves as the editor-​in-chief of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. 

 

His research program focuses on the asymmetric synthesis of biologically active, stereochemically complex, natural products.

Target molecules are selected which pose unique challenges in asymmetric bond construction. A complex multistep synthesis endeavor provides a goal-​oriented setting within which to engage in reaction innovation and design.

Drawing from the areas of organometallic chemistry, coordination chemistry, and molecular recognition, Carreira's group is developing synthetic methods based on catalytic and stoichiometric reagents for asymmetric stereocontrol. The group is also involved in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology, in collaboration with research groups in academia and industry covering the range of biology and medicine.