Biography

Professor Robert E. Maleczka, Jr. was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois.  In 1984 he earned a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, where he carried out research with Professor Kenneth L. Rinehart.  Upon graduation, he accepted a position with the discovery group at Abbott Labs, working on the development of novel arylfluoroquinolone antibacterial agents.  In 1987, he left Abbott and enrolled in graduate school at The Ohio State University where he studied under Professor Leo Paquette. In late 1992, he moved to the University of Pennsylvania as an American Cancer Society post-doctoral fellow in the laboratories of Professor Amos B. Smith, III.

In the fall of 1995, he began his independent career at Michigan State University, where he currently holds the rank of Professor.  In late 2010, Professor Maleczka became the Chair of the Department of Chemistry, a position he held until June 2021.  The Maleczka group’s research interests include Green Chemistry, the invention of organoborane, organostannane, and organosilane reactions for organic synthesis; developing new cross-coupling methods; combining catalytic arene C-H activation/borylation with other chemical events; Wittig rearrangements and related chemistry, and the total synthesis of biologically active natural products.

Honors bestowed on Professor Maleczka include being named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2021 and of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 2014.  He is a recipient of MSU's William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award, the Merck Technology Collaboration Award, the EPA's 2008 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge award, the Astellas and Yamanouchi USA Foundation Faculty Award, and the Sigma Xi (MSU Chapter) Junior Meritorious Faculty Research Award. He has held the Novartis Lecturer title at Yale University and the Anslyn, Iverson, Sessler Lecturer title at the University of Texas, as well as that of Guest Professor of the Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC.

Professor Maleczka’s teaching has been recognized with an MSU College of Natural Science Teacher-Scholar Award, the MSU College of Natural Science Alumni Association's Meritorious Faculty Award, and by being named the Mentor of the Year by the MSU Chapter of Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE).

Among his service and outreach activities, Professor Maleczka has served as a Diversity Scholar at the center for the Integration of Teaching and Learning (Madison, WI) and as a member of the ACS/EPA Green Chemistry Market Roundtable and White House Forum. He has a long history of ACS service and including as the treasurer of the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry. He currently Chairs the ACS Publications Committee and the C&EN Editorial Board. He served two terms on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Chemical Sciences Roundtable.  He recently joined the Board of Directors of Organic Reactions, Inc.