K. N. Houk received his PhD with R. B. Woodward on experimental tests of orbital symmetry selection rules. He is now Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Houk is an authority on theoretical and computational organic chemistry.  His group is involved in developments of rules to understand reactivity, computer modeling of complex organic reactions, and experimental tests of the predictions of theory.  He collaborates prodigiously with chemists all over the world, frequently on theoretical investigations of mechanisms involving transition metals, organocatalysts and enzymes. He is also involved in the studies of biosynthetic processes, the design of enzymes, the quantitative modeling of asymmetric reactions used in synthesis, and the dynamics and properties of supramolecular nanomachines, and the mechanisms and dynamics of pericyclic reactions.  He has published over 1400 publications and a physical organic chemistry textbook with Pierre Vogel.  He has an h-index of 138.