Born in Strasbourg, France in 1955, Paul Knochel studied at the University of Strasbourg and gained his PhD at the ETH-Zurich under Prof. D. Seebach. He spent 4 years at the CNRS of the University Pierre and Marie Curie at Paris under Professor J.-F. Normant and a one-year post-doc at Princeton University, under Professor M. F. Semmelhack. In 1987 he accepted an assistant professorship at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Michigan, becoming a full professor there in 1991. One year later he moved to Philipps-University at Marburg, Germany as Professor in Organic Chemistry. In 1999, he transferred to the Chemistry Department at Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany, where he remains today. Professor Knochel's research interests include the development of novel organometallic reagents and methods for use in organic synthesis, asymmetric catalysis and natural product synthesis.