Aaron Van Dyke

Biography

A native of the pacific northwest, Aaron Van Dyke received his B.S. in Chemistry from Seattle University (a fellow Jesuit Institution) as a Sullivan Scholar. He went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry. Working under Professor Timothy F. Jamison, Dr. Van Dyke developed methods for the synthesis of ladder polyether natural products. He then entered the field of Chemical Biology, training with Professor Anna K. Mapp at the University of Michigan as an American Cancer Society – Michigan Cancer Research Fund postdoctoral fellow. Professor Van Dyke began his independent career at Fairfield University in 2013. He was recognized as Fairfield University's Undergraduate Teacher of the Year in 2015 and received the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Advising and Mentoring Award in 2017. He currently serves on the National Selection Committee for the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and is the Faculty-in-Residence of Fairfield's Ignatian Residential College.

Research Interest

As a Chemical Biology group, my research is situated at the interface of chemistry and biology. Projects in my group revolve around small molecules that modify protein structure and/or function. Areas of active reserach involve 1) investigating new bioorthogonal strategies for covalently labeling native proteins and 2) designing small molecules to control transcriptionally important protein-protein interactions.