Professor James W. Jorgenson is the W. R. Kenan, Jr. Professor Chemistry at UNC Chapel Hill.

He invented and developed capillary electrophoresis, the highest resolution, most time-efficient separations method known.

Capillary electrophoresis is widely employed to separate complex mixtures of biological origin, as in proteomics and metabolomics, and was the enabling experiment in DNA sequencing in the Human Genome Project.

His memberships include American Chemical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Jorgenson received Lifetime Achievement Award, Ralph N. Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry, American Chemical Society Award in Analytical Chemistry, Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award, Esselen Award for Chemistry, James B. Himes Merit Award, Dal Nogare Award, Anachem Award, Torben Bergman Medal of the Swedish Chemical Society, Van Slyke Award, and Martin Medal of the Chromatographic Society.