Loren Williams is from Seattle. He received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Washington, where he worked for Martin Gouterman. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Duke University, where he worked for Barbara Shaw. He was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard, and an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT with Alexander Rich. He is currently a Professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. Loren is a Fellow of the AAAS and of the International Society for the Study of the Origins of Life. He was previously Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute funded RiboEvo Center and is currently Director of the NASA-funded Center for Integration of Origins of Life (iCOOL). Loren is currently a Co-Lead of the Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environment Consortium (PCE₃, a NASA Research Coordination Network).

Selected Honors and Awards:

• 1995 NSF Career Award
• 1996 Sigma Xi Best Paper from Georgia Tech
• 2012 Georgia Tech Student Advisement Award
• 2012 Petit Institute Above and Beyond Award
• 2013 Georgia Tech Faculty Award for Academic Outreach
• 2013 Georgia Tech Faculty Mentor Award, College of Sciences
• 2017 Access Alley Award from Georgia Tech Disability Services
• 2019 Vasser Woolley Award for Excellence in Instruction
• 2020-21 Georgia Tech Outstanding Achievement in Research Program Development
• 2021 Fellow of the International Society for Study of the Origin of Life
• 2021 Petit Institute Above and Beyond Award
• 2022 Faculty Mentor Award, College of Sciences
• 2023 Fellow of the AAAS

Loren Williams

Funding

Funding