Professor Shū Kobayashi studied at the University of Tokyo, receiving his Ph.D. in 1988 working under the direction of Professor T. Mukaiyama. Following an initial period as assistant professor, he was promoted to lecturer then associate professor at Science University of Tokyo (SUT). In 1998, he moved to the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the University of Tokyo, as full professor. In 2007, he was appointed to his current position as professor of Organic Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, at the University of Tokyo. He has held various visiting professorships, including the Universite Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg (1993), Kyoto University (1995), Nijmegen University (1996), Philipps-University of Marburg (1997) and Paris-Sud (2010). Professor Kobayashi has wide-ranging research interests that include the development of new synthetic methods and novel catalysts, organic reactions in water, solid-phase synthesis, total synthesis of biologically interesting compounds, and organometallic chemistry. He has held numerous named lectureships and is a recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Chemical Society of Japan Award for Young Chemists (1991), OMCOS Award in Organometallic Chemistry (1997), IBM Science Award (2001), Organic Reactions Lecturer (2002), Nagoya Silver Medal (2002), Mitsui Chemical Catalysis Science Award (2005), JSPS Prize (2005), the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society (2006), Howard Memorial Lecturer (2006), C.S. Hamilton Award (2007), Merck-Cambridge Lecturer (2007), Humboldt Research Award (2013), Green Chemistry Minister of Education Award (2013), AAAS Fellow (2015), and Toray Award (2015).