Matyjaszewski

Krzysztof J. Matyjaszewski (born 1950) is a Polish-American chemist and professor of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. He is renowned for developing Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP), a controlled radical polymerization technique that has become a foundational method in modern polymer chemistry.

ATRP, introduced in the mid-1990s, uses a transition metal catalyst to reversibly activate and deactivate growing polymer chains. This mediates living growth of polymer chains with precise control over molecular weight, composition, and architecture, enabling the reliable synthesis of block copolymers, grafted polymers, star polymers, and other structures that were difficult to access with traditional methods.

Because of its versatility, ATRP has been applied across materials science, nanotechnology, biomedicine, and electronics, and has spurred further developments in related living/controlled polymerization techniques. Matyjaszewski's research program emphasizes fundamental mechanisms of polymerization, catalyst design, and the development of practical, scalable methods. He has authored hundreds of articles and has trained a large cadre of researchers who work in academia, industry, and government.

His work has earned international recognition and multiple honors from scientific societies and prize committees. See also: Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization.