F. Dean Toste received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in chemistry from the University of Toronto where he worked with Prof. Ian W. J. Still. In 1995, he began his doctoral studies at Stanford University under the direction of Professor Barry M. Trost. Following postdoctoral studies with Professor Robert H. Grubbs at Caltech, he joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006. Current research in his group is aimed towards the design of catalysts and catalytic reactions and the application of these methods to chemical synthesis.