D. Tyler McQuade, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University since 2001, graduated from UCI in 1992 with both a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.S. in Biology. Tyler was born in Atlanta and raised near Santa Cruz, where he went to Cabrillo College before transferring to UCI. He was very involved with ASUCI and other campus activities and also surfed Newport between classes and undergrad research under Professor Gary Lynch in the Bonney Center for Learning and Memory. He was set to apply to the Peace Corps after graduation until a frank talking to by Physics Professor Roger McWilliams led him to consider graduate school instead. He then added a second research project under Professor Hal Moore in his senior year, where organic chemistry became his passion through the wonderful mentorship given him by Hal, graduate student (at the time) Phil Turnbull, and post-doctoral fellow (at the time) Danny Arnaiz. Passion of a different sort may have also swayed Tyler from the Peace Corps; he met his wife Angele, an English major, on campus and they were married in Aldrich Park during his senior year.

With a great foundation in organic chemistry thanks to his time in the Moore group, Tyler charged off to the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he earned his Ph.D. under the guidance of Professor Samuel Gellman. During his stay at UW, he received a number of awards including the prestigious ACS graduate fellowship. In addition, one of the surfactants for solubilizing membrane proteins described in his Ph.D. thesis has recently become commercially available. Tyler and his wife also added two children (Will, now 13, and Maddie, now 8) to their family during his grad school years, ensuring yet another source of fondness for their five years spent in Wisconsin. Tyler completed his education with an NIH Fellowship with Professor Timothy Swager at MIT where he was once again near the ocean, though unfortunately not one he could surf.

From synthetic methodology in the Moore group to bioorganic in the Gellman group to materials chemistry in the Swager group, Tyler explored in depth many facets of organic chemistry. Hes combined all of these elements in his current research at Cornell, which focuses on creating synthetic systems that use site-isolation and selectivity to carry out multi-step syntheses with greater efficiency. Simply put, he's working to make chemical synthesis - especially pharmaceutical production - less wasteful and expensive than it is now. His groups multidisciplinary environment is yielding both polymers and small molecules that will provide the building blocks for next generation methodology and new tools for sustainable process chemistry.

Tyler is very interested in "sustainable chemistry," a more environmentally benign way of doing science. Combining his new approaches to synthetic chemistry with a unique marketing strategy won his team Cornells Big Red Ventures 2005 Business Idea Competition and has created the research foundation for his start-up pharmaceutical company Systanix. Tyler is currently a Dreyfus, 3M, Rohm and Haas, Beckman, and NYSTAR Young Investigator and one of the 2004 MIT Tech Review 100. While he isnt able to surf in Ithaca either, he keeps busy with his family enjoying cooking, reading, and hiking together when hes not writing grant proposals or mentoring students. He plays competitive volleyball and also plays in his departments monthly poker game, joining in a tradition that dates back >50 years.

Tyler is very grateful for his years at UCI, especially for the superb academic training and generous support from faculty that he received. He follows the lead of these exemplary professors by mentoring undergrads in his own research lab now and by encouraging his advisees to check in with him whenever they have questions or are looking for advice. His life at UCI wasnt just about the science, though. Tyler is also thankful for the wide range of social, educational, athletic and political experiences he was able to sample during his undergrad years, experiences that played a pivotal role in his personal development (not to mention landed him a fellow Anteater as a wife, an unexpected and most providential fringe benefit of some already very fine years in Irvine).