Bertozzi joined Stanford University as the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor, moving her research program from UC Berkeley.
In September 2014, Carolyn Bertozzi joined the faculty of Stanford University, becoming the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Chemistry. This move came after nearly two decades at the University of California, Berkeley, where she had built her laboratory and developed the foundations of bioorthogonal chemistry beginning in 1996.
Her transition to Stanford represented a significant moment in her career, bringing her internationally renowned research program to a new institutional home with expanded resources for interdisciplinary chemical biology research. At Stanford, she would go on to become a founding member and later director of Stanford ChEM-H (Chemistry, Engineering & Medicine for Human Health), an institute dedicated to bridging chemistry, biology, and medicine.
The move to Stanford allowed Bertozzi to continue expanding the applications of bioorthogonal chemistry into new areas, including glycoscience, immunology, and drug delivery, while training a new generation of scientists in her adopted academic home. Her research continued to flourish, ultimately contributing to the body of work recognized by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022.
This appointment marked a new chapter in a career defined by continual innovation, positioning Stanford as a central hub for bioorthogonal chemistry research in the years leading up to her Nobel Prize.