Professor Heather D. Maynard

Heather D. Maynard is the Dr. Myung Ki Hong Professor in Polymer Science at UCLA. Maynard is a worldwide leader in the area of protein-polymer conjugates, which are important therapeutics for a variety of diseases. She develops new synthetic methods to make the materials, invents new polymers to improve properties such as stability, and demonstrates preclinical efficacy of her conjugates with an eye towards translation for human health. Maynard’s research and teaching have been recognized by numerous awards including the American Chemical Society Arthur Cope Scholar Award, Bioconjugate Chemistry Lectureship Award, Fulbright Specialist Award, National Science Foundation Career Award, Hanson-Dow Award for Excellence in Teaching and the UCLA Student Development Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award. Maynard is an American Chemical Society Fellow, ACS Polymer Chemistry Fellow and ACS Polymer Materials: Science and Engineering Fellow. She is also an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), Leverhulme, Kavli Frontiers, and Royal Society of Chemistry Fellow and was a member of the United States Defense Science Study Group from 2016-2017. Maynard is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.  She obtained her PhD from Caltech in 2000 and was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow at the ETH from 2000-2002.