Mitch Croatt

Lloyd International Honors College
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
135 Shaw Residence Hall (URSCO)
415 Sullivan Science Building (CHE)
Greensboro, NC  27401

Bio

Mitch was born in the small town of New Prague, Minnesota. He went to the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 1998 and earned his B.S. in Chemistry after doing research in the group of Professor George A. O’Doherty. In 2002, Mitch then went to Stanford University to pursue a Ph.D. in Chemistry in the group of Professor Paul A. Wender. He focused his graduate research on the design and development of new transition metal-catalyzed reactions and successfully defended his thesis in 2007. Mitch did postdoctoral research overseas in Zurich, Switzerland to study in the group of Professor Erick M. Carreira at ETH-Zurich. There he made semi-synthetic analogs of Amphotericin B to help study its mechanism of action with an effort to generate a more selective antifungal compound.

In 2010, Mitch started his independent academic career at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro as an Assistant Professor, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015 and to Professor in 2021. In 2022, Mitch was named the Marie Foscue Rourk Distinguished Professor based on the many successes of his research group, including receiving grant funding from the NSF, NIH, NCBC, and ACS. For more information about his research projects, please visit his research group’s webpage.

From the Fall of 2017 until the Summer of 2024, Mitch served as the Department Head for the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. During his time in this role, the Department’s research productivity hit a new high with over $3M in grant dollars received in a single year. The Department also received several accolades for inclusive excellence, including awards from the College of Arts and Sciences at UNCG and the Stanley C. Israel Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences.

From May of 2024 until August of 2025, Mitch served as the Interim Dean of the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering a program that is jointly run by UNCG and NCA&T. Starting in August of 2025, Mitch became the Interim Director of the Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Office.

Education

Ph.D. Chemistry, Stanford University
B.S. Chemistry, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Research

Croatt Research Group: The goal of their research group is to creatively design approaches to solve problems of significant synthetic, material, environmental, and medicinal natures. To optimally do so, their group works on the design and development of new reactions that provide core structures of medicinal leads utilizing either novel access to reactive intermediates or unexplored cycloaddition components. Medicinal chemistry projects in the group focus on the step-economical synthesis of analogs of medicinally significant molecules to probe and potentially improve the properties of the parent molecule. An additional project in their group is the conversion of renewable resources into fuels and chemical feedstocks that are currently synthesized or isolated from nonrenewable sources. Collectively, these projects adequately illustrate the solutions to problems that their group will be involved with and their potential applications in society.