Dr. Tim Cernak is an Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Michigan, with appointments in Chemistry, Chemical Biology, the Center for Global Health Equity, the Michigan Institute for Data Science, the Rogel Cancer Center, the Michigan Center for Infectious Disease Threats, the Department of Robotics, the School for Environment and Sustainability. He is also a Research Fellow of the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. His research spans chemical synthesis, ecology, data science, automation, sustainability, and drug discovery, with applications ranging from oncology and neurology to agriculture and conservation.

Before joining Michigan in 2018, Tim spent nearly a decade at Merck Research Laboratories, advancing C–H functionalization, reaction miniaturization, and drug design for major diseases. He studied at UBC Okanagan, completed his PhD at McGill University, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University. Tim has served on advisory boards for the University of Dundee’s Drug Discovery Unit, the Open Reaction Database, and Scorpion Therapeutics. He is also a co-founder of Iambic Therapeutics.