Richmond Sarpong is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of California Berkeley where he and his group specialize in synthetic organic chemistry. At Berkeley, Richmond’s laboratory focuses on the synthesis of bioactive complex organic molecules, especially secondary metabolites (aka natural products) that come from marine or terrestrial flora and fauna. He has received numerous awards in recognition of his research including an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, an ACS Cope Scholar Award, an NSF Career Award, and a Royal Society of Chemistry Synthetic Organic Chemistry Award. He is grateful for a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship.