Paul Chirik

In the course of his career, he has authored numerous scientific publications, and has been invited to give lectures and presentations in over 200 national and international seminars and conferences including the 2012 Falling Walls Conference in Berlin, where he gave a talk entitled "Breaking the Wall of Sustainable Chemistry: How Modern Alchemy Can Lead to Inexpensive and Clean Technology".

Paul James Chirik (born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on June 13, 1973) is an American chemist and the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University. He is the editor-in-chief of Organometallics and an expert in sustainable chemistry and catalysis with Earth-abundant transition metals.

Chirik was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on June 13, 1973. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor's of Science in Chemistry in 1995 from Virginia Tech having conducted research with Joseph Merola. He earned his Ph.D. with John Bercaw at Caltech studying the mechanism of metallocene-catalyzed olefin polymerization and hydrometallation chemistry in which he was recognized with the Hebert Newby McCoy Award. After a brief postdoctoral appointment with Professor Christopher C. Cummins at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he joined the faculty at Cornell University in 2001 as an assistant professor. In 2006, he was promoted to associate professor, and in 2009, he was named the Peter J. W. Debye Professor of Chemistry. In 2011, he moved to Princeton University.