Keary Engle Named Dean of Scripps Research’s Skaggs Graduate School of Chemical and Biological Sciences
July 01, 2024
Scripps Research has appointed Professor Keary Engle to the role of Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, effective July 1, 2024, and will lead the institute's Skaggs Graduate School of Chemical and Biological Sciences and other education and training programs. Professor Phil Dawson, who has served as dean since 2017, will step into a new role as Chair of the Graduate School Advisory Committee (GAC).
“Keary's sustained commitment and many contributions to the graduate school make him the perfect individual to carry on the legacy of previous deans while taking our education and training programs to new heights,” says Peter Schultz, PhD, President and CEO of Scripps Research and the L.S. “Sam” Skaggs Presidential Chair. “Since joining the chemistry faculty, Keary has taught and presented in numerous courses, served on over 90 graduate student advisory committees, and welcomed more than two dozen rotation students into his lab, many of whom remained as thesis students.”
When Dawson was named to the role in early 2017, he described his primary mission as continuing the program’s “great tradition of academic and scientific excellence that has earned the program international prestige.” By any measure, he achieved this goal, maintaining the school’s top-10 ranking, securing its reaccreditation in 2020 for a decade, welcoming almost 350 new program alumni, and overseeing a period of robust growth, wherein the total student body grew from 172 in 2017 to more than 400 when the new class arrives in August 2024.
Engle, like Dawson before him, brings a personal perspective on graduate studies shaped by his experience as an alumnus of the program. Engle defended his graduate thesis at Scripps Research in 2013 under the mentorship of Professor Jin-Quan Yu. During this time, he was a participant in the institute’s joint Skaggs-Oxford program, affording him the opportunity to also study at the University of Oxford with Professors Véronique Gouverneur and John M. Brown. After earning a PhD in Chemistry from Scripps Research and a DPhil in Biochemistry from Oxford, Engle completed a NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship with Professor Robert H. Grubbs at California Institute of Technology.
In 2015, Engle returned to Scripps Research to start his career as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry. Almost immediately upon his return, he committed himself to supporting the education and training of future researchers through dedicated involvement in the graduate program as a mentor, advisor and instructor. Engle was promoted to professor in 2020.
“I feel privileged for the opportunity to lead a graduate program that has had such an impact on my career and that of hundreds of scientists around the world,” says Engle, whose research interests lie at the interface of organometallic chemistry, organic synthesis, and catalysis. “The Skaggs Graduate School continues to generate interdisciplinary researchers who impact the future with their advanced training, creativity, and bold, innovative ideas, and I look forward to carrying that forward and building on the stellar achievements of Dean Dawson.”
Engle will continue to run a lab and will work closely with the GAC in his new position.
About the Skaggs Graduate School
Ranked among the top 10 doctoral programs of its kind in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, the Skaggs Graduate School of Chemical and Biological Sciences at Scripps Research offers rigorous training in chemistry, chemical biology, neuroscience, immunology, computational biology, and numerous other biomedical research areas. The program immerses students in intensive laboratory research while offering a customizable course curriculum that allows students to match individual research interests while exploring multidisciplinary topics at the interface of chemistry and biology.
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