Ilan Marek

Professor Ilan Marek of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is chair of the soon-to-be-launched Center for Sustainable Processes and Catalysis, aimed at uncovering new ways to address global sustainability issues. Since 2015, he has held the Sir Michael and Lady Sobell Academic Chair.
Prof. Marek focuses part of his research on organic synthesis — the art and science of constructing organic molecules, whose primary element is carbon, such as those found in living creatures and in some synthetic materials. He pioneered new methodologies to connect carbon atoms that efficiently prepare highly sophisticated molecular backbones (the building blocks of life), drastically minimizing waste production.
Born in Haifa, Prof. Marek is a bi-national French-Israeli chemist who received his bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry at the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. He conducted postdoctoral work at the University of Louvain-La-Neuve in Belgium and held a research position at the French National Centre for Scientific Research before joining the Technion faculty in September 1997.
Since 2015, Prof. Marek has held the Sir Michael and Lady Sobell Academic Chair, and he is a member of the French Academy of Sciences, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Academia Europaea.
Prof. Marek has received dozens of awards including the Janssen Pharmaceutica Prize for Creativity in Organic Synthesis, and most recently, the 2021 Arthur C. Cope Scholars Award from the American Chemical Society. He also received the Yanai Award for excellence in teaching in 2016, and various other Technion and Israel-sponsored honors.