Craig Hawker


Craig J. Hawker is an Australian-born chemist. His research has focused on the interface between organic and polymer chemistry with emphasis on the design, synthesis, and application of well-defined macromolecular structures in biotechnology, microelectronics and surface science. Hawker holds more than 45 U.S. patents and has co-authored over 300 papers in the areas of nanotechnology, materials science and chemistry. He was listed as one of the Top 100 most cited chemists worldwide over the decade 1992–2002. and again in 2000–2010. Hawker is currently the director of the California Nanosystems Institute and holds a number of other laboratory directorships at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Education

Hawker was born in Australia and attended high school in Queensland. It was in high school that he developed his interest in chemistry because, as he put it, "...it really allowed me to develop things with my hands. Chemistry is a very hands-on science.". He studied at the University of Queensland and graduated with a Chemistry degree. He worked with Professor Sir Alan R. Battersby at Cambridge University on his post-graduate studies achieving his PhD in bio-organic chemistry. Hawker then moved to the United States to pursue post-graduate work at Cornell University in 1988.

Research history

In 1990, Hawker returned to Queensland as a Queen Elizabeth II Research fellow at the University of Queensland. From 2004, he was a research staff member at the IBM Almaden Research Center in California.
Hawker is currently the Director of the California NanoSystems Institute, Co-Director of the Materials Research Laboratory and the Alan and Ruth Heeger Professor of Interdisciplinary Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Influence and Research Focus

In 2012, Hawker won the Centenary Prize from the Royal Society for developing strategies for the design of new polymers which has had a major influence in the area and on those studying polymers. In 2013, Hawker and another colleague invented Olaplex, a successful commercial product designed to 'relinks hair bonds' to help reduce hair breakage. In 2018, Olaplex won a patent infringement action against L'Oreal. In 2015, Hawker was named as an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow for "...revolutionising materials research through the development of powerful synthetic methods and strategies for molecularly engineering functional macromolecules, inspiring scientists across multiple disciplines." He also serves or has served as editor for journals such as the Journal of Polymer Science and is on the editorial board for a number of journals of Chemistry including the International Journal of Polymeric Materials and the Journal of Polymer Science Part A. In 2017, he was described as "one of the top materials scientists in the world, "
In 2018, Hawker and his colleagues developed a "... 3D-printing technique that can produce objects with both rigid and flexible properties will allow scientists to make bioinspired structures in just a single stage." This could lead to the development of structures with "mechanically and chemically distinct properties". Hawker is currently researching ‘nanostructured materials’ in areas associated with ‘microelectronics and biotechnology’.

Awards