Ehud Keinan is Benno Gitter Professor of Chemistry at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Technion, Israel. Born and educated in Israel, served in the IDF as a company commander of a reconnaissance unit, obtained a Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute, and did a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin with Barry Trost. Fields of interest include biocatalysis with antibodies and synthetic enzymes, organic synthesis, drug discovery, molecular computing, improvised explosives, and supramolecular chemistry.
He served as Dean of Chemistry at the Technion and Adjunct Professor at The Scripps Research Institute, California, for 25 years; he founded the Institute of Catalysis Science and Technology at the Technion and three startup companies. He served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Sciences at the Guangdong-Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Guangdong, China (2015-2016), and since 2020 has held a Distinguished Visiting Chair at Academia Sinica, Taiwan; he served on the Executive Board of EuChemS and serves on the FACS Board. He is 18-year Editor-in-Chief of the Israel J. Chem (Wiley-VCH), 18-year President of the Israel Chemical Society, Editor-in-Chief of the AsiaChem magazine (FACS), 10-year Council Member of the Wolf Foundation (oversees the Wolf Chemistry Prize), was Chairman of the Advisory Council of Chemistry, Ministry of Education for 15 years, Chairman of the Bowei Research Conferences, and IUPAC President (2024-2025). Keinan received the New England Award for Academic Excellence, the Shannon Award, the CapCure Award, the Herschel-Rich Award, the Technion Prize for security technologies, the Henri Taub Prize for scientific excellence, and the Schulich Prize; the Engagement Leader of the Year Award from the Asia-Pacific Triple E Awards; and the 2020 Award of Service from EuChemS, AAAS Fellow since 2010, and ACS Fellow since 2021. Makor Rishon magazine named him “Man of the Year” in 2017 for his service in the Ammonia War.