Chad Mirkin

Chad A. Mirkin is the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University, where he also holds appointments in Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Medicine. He serves as Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN). He joined the Northwestern faculty in 1991 and has become a leading researcher in nanoscience, nanomedicine, and nanoscale materials engineering.

He earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Dickinson College in 1986 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Pennsylvania State University in 1989. He subsequently completed postdoctoral research as a National Science Foundation Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

His pioneering research includes the development of spherical nucleic acids (SNAs), dip-pen nanolithography, DNA-based nanoparticle assembly, and high-area rapid printing technologies. His discoveries have advanced molecular diagnostics, nanomedicine, gene regulation, and nanoscale manufacturing. In 2002, he received the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (Experimental) for his groundbreaking contributions to nanotechnology.