Andrew S. Borovik PhD

Andrew S. Borovik is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California. Borovik was raised in Chicago and received his B.S. degree in Chemistry with Honors from Humboldt State University. As an undergraduate student, he did research at Oregon State University as an NSF Summer Fellow and at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a WHOI Fellow. Both research experiences involved using nuclear chemistry to trace metal ions in the environment. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill under Tom Sorrell where he developed photophysical models for the active site of copper proteins. As an NIH postdoctoral fellow with Larry Que at the University of Minnesota, he designed synthetic complexes that replicated the properties of dinuclear iron centers in proteins. Upon completion of his postdoctoral fellowship, Professor Borovik joined the faculty at Ithaca College where he taught chemistry and mentored 6 undergraduate research students for two years. He then moved to the University of California-Berkeley as a postdoctoral associate with Ken Raymond, working on stereotactic coordination chemistry. From there, he joined the Chemistry Department at Kansas State University where he began a broad program on the effects of the secondary coordination sphere on metal ions. After 3 years, he moved his research group to the University of Kansas, continuing research on the development of metal complexes and hybrid materials with unique structural and functional properties. In 2006, Professor Borovik and his research group moved to the University of California-Irvine, expanding his approach to now include designing artificial metalloproteins. Professor Borovik has won several teaching and research awards that including a 2017 MERIT Award from the NIH, the 2018 National Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry from the American Chemical Society, and the 2019 Tolman Award from the Southern California Section of the American Chemical Society. He is currently a UCI Distinguished Professor.