Dan Kahne appointed Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology

Harvard's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology announces Daniel Kahne as the new chair of the department, effective July 1, 2024. Kahne is the Higgins Professor of Chemistry & Chemical Biology at CCB, where he has taught since 2004.

In his new position, Kahne will succeed Theodore Betley, Erving Professor of Chemistry, who has served as CCB chair since 2020, and prior to that as co-chair with Kahne from February 2020 to June 2020. 

"I am excited to pass the torch to Dan Kahne and am confident that the Department will continue to thrive under his leadership," Betley said. "Dan is passionately committed to both teaching and cutting-edge research. His high standards in these core areas combined with his genuine interest in the human dimension of all members of our department will ensure that we excel in our laboratories and our teaching mission, and that we flourish as a community. " 

Kahne looks forward to his time as Chair as an oppurtunity to build upon Betley's legacy as chair.

"I am truly grateful to Ted Betley for his outstanding leadership and dedication to our department, " Kahne said. "He made great personal and professional sacrifices to put the department's interests first during one of the most challenging times in its history. Ted's belief in our young faculty and the importance of community has put us in a very strong position as a department. I look forward to working with our faculty, students, and many talented staff members to build on Ted's accomplishments."

Kahne was born in Boston and grew up in Lexington, MA. He graduated from Cornell University with a degree in art history and chemistry and from Columbia University in 1986 with a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry.  He was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia and joined the chemistry faculty at Princeton in 1988.  Dan moved to Harvard in 2004.  Dan is a chemist who is interested in the mechanisms of antibiotic killing and resistance.  He is known for his studies characterizing the proteins that assemble the outer membrane that protects Gram-negative bacteria.