Professor Overman's research interests center on the invention of new reactions and strategies in organic synthesis and the total synthesis of natural products and their congeners. Total synthesis targets of our laboratory include agents displaying a variety of pharmacological activities. We are involved also in collaborative programs in the areas of Golgi and cancer biology.
He was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1943 and raised in Hammond, Indiana where he attended public schools. He obtained a B.A. degree from Earlham College in 1965 and completed his doctoral dissertation in 1969 with Professor Howard W. Whitlock, Jr., at the University of Wisconsin. After and NIH postdoctoral fellowship with Professor Ronald Breslow at Columbia University, he joined the faculty at the UC Irvine in 1971 where he is now Distinguished Professor of Chemistry.
Professor Overman is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His other scientific awards include the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the ACS, Senior Scientist Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Guggenheim Fellowships. He has also received the UCI School of Physical Sciences Distinguished Teaching award and the UCI Alumni Association Distinguished Research Award.
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1969
B.A., Earlham College, 1965