Richard R. Schrock

Born in Berne, Indiana, Schrock went to Mission Bay High School in San Diego, California. He holds a B.A. (1967) from the University of California, Riverside and a Ph.D. (1971) from Harvard University under the direction of John A. Osborn.

Following his PhD, Schrock carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge with Jack Lewis. In 1972, he was hired by DuPont, where he worked at the Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware in the group of George Parshall. He joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and became full professor in 1980.

He has been the Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry, at MIT since 1989, and is now Professor Emeritus. Schrock is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Sciences and was elected to the Board of Overseers of Harvard University in 2007.

He is co-founder and member of the board of a Swiss-based company, XiMo, inc., now owned by Verbio, AG, which is focused on the development and application of proprietary metathesis catalysts.

In 2018, Schrock joined the faculty of his alma mater, the University of California, Riverside, where he is now the Distinguished Professor and George K. Helmkamp Founder's Chair of Chemistry. He cited his interest in mentoring junior faculty and students. "My experience as an undergraduate at UCR in research in the laboratory of James Pitts and the quality of the classes in chemistry prepared me for my Ph.D. experience at Harvard. I look forward to returning to UCR for a few years to give back some of what it gave to me," Schrock said.

Schrock married Nancy Carlson in 1971 and has two children, Andrew and Eric. Nancy Schrock was the Thomas F. Peterson Jr. Conservator of Special Collections for the MIT Libraries from 2006 to 2013. The family lives in Winchester, Massachusetts.