Craig Jon Hawker (born 11 January 1964) is an Australian-born chemist. His research has focused on the interface between organic and polymer chemistry, with emphasis on the design, synthesis, and application of well-defined macromolecular structures in biotechnology, microelectronics, and surface science. Hawker holds more than 45 U.S. patents, and he has co-authored over 300 papers in the areas of nanotechnology, materials science, and chemistry. He was listed as one of the top 100 most cited chemists worldwide over the decade 1992–2002, and again in 2000–2010. In 2021, Hawker was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to polymer chemistry through synthetic organic chemistry concepts and the advancement of molecular engineering principles. He is the director of the California Nanosystems Institute and holds a number of other laboratory directorships at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022. Education Hawker was born in Australia and attended high school in Queensland. It was in high school that he developed his interest in chemistry because, as he put it, "it really allowed me to develop things with my hands. Chemistry is a very hands-on science." He studied at the University of Queensland and graduated with a Chemistry degree. He worked with Professor Alan R. Battersby at Cambridge University on his post-graduate studies achieving his PhD in bio-organic chemistry. Hawker then moved to the United States to pursue post-graduate work at Cornell University in 1988. Research history In 1990, Hawker returned to Queensland as a Queen Elizabeth II Research fellow at the University of Queensland. From 2004, he was a research staff member at the IBM Almaden Research Center in California. Hawker is the director of the California NanoSystems Institute, co-director of the Materials Research Laboratory, and the Alan and Ruth Heeger Professor of Interdisciplinary Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Influence and research focus In 2012, Hawker won the Centenary Prize from the Royal Society for developing strategies for the design of new polymers, which has had a major influence in the area and on those studying polymers. In 2013, Hawker and another colleague invented Olaplex, a successful commercial product designed to relink hair bonds and to help reduce hair breakage. In 2018, Olaplex won a patent infringement action against L'Oréal. In 2015, Hawker was named as an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow