Department of Chemistry Expands Faculty with Two New Hires for 2025–2026
2025-09-25
The Department of Chemistry is proud to welcome two new faculty members whose expertise strengthens the department’s research, discovery and outreach.
Wesley Cochrane earned his PhD in chemistry from Scripps Research and conducted postdoctoral research in RNA biochemistry at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He has joined the department as an assistant professor of biochemistry. Cochrane’s research focuses on developing chemical technologies to identify and modulate disease-associated RNAs and on engineering synthetic RNA therapeutics. His work aims to harness RNA-targeting small molecules and bio-stable RNA tools to impact human health across diverse therapeutic contexts.
Emmanouil Zacharioudakis earned his PhD in chemical biology from the Institut Curie and the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles, following earlier degrees from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Imperial College London. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he received the Dennis Shields Award for outstanding postdoctoral research. He has joined the department as an assistant professor of chemical biology. Zacharioudakis’s research focuses on uncovering mitochondrial adaptation mechanisms that regulate apoptosis and contribute to therapeutic resistance in cancer. His work integrates chemical biology and drug discovery to develop small molecules that restore apoptotic sensitivity and provide new strategies for cancer treatment.
About Purdue Chemistry
The James Tarpo Jr. and Margaret Tarpo Department of Chemistry is internationally acclaimed for its excellence in chemical education and innovation, boasting two Nobel laureates in organic chemistry, the #1 ranked analytical chemistry program, and a highly successful drug discovery initiative that has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties. Learn more about chem.purdue.edu.
Writer: Alison Harmeson
Contributors: Wesley Cochrane assistant professor, Emmanouil Zacharioudakis assistant professor