Speaker Bio – Gavin Williams

Gavin Williams, Associate Head, Associate Professor in Bio-organic Chemistry

B.Sc., University of Wales, UK

Ph.D., University of Leeds, UK

 

Dr. Williams received his B.Sc. with First Class Honors from the University of Wales at Aberystwyth (1998) and a Ph.D. in chemical biology from the University of Leeds, England (2002). He then completed postdoctoral research at the University of Leeds with Prof. Adam Nelson (chemistry) and Prof. Alan Berry (molecular and structural biology) where he created tailored aldolase enzymes for the synthesis of sugars. He then moved to the University of Wisconsin at Madison as a research scientist with Prof. Jon Thorson where he engineered enzymes involved in natural product glycosylation. He has been at NC State University since 2009 where his research group uses protein engineering, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology to reprogram the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, including polyketides and terpenes. Dr. Williams received the NSF Career Award in 2012, the 2014 Sigma Xi Research Award, was named a University Faculty Scholar in 2015, is a member of the Comparative Medicine Institute at NC State, and in 2019 was named a LORD Corporation Distinguished Scholar. He has been serving as the Associate Head since 2018.