Marion Götz

Associate Professor of Chemistry Marion Götz is one of the three tenure-track faculty responsible for teaching the organic chemistry sequence at Whitman. Götz received her Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Jim Powers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta in 2004. Her graduate studies focused on the design of inhibitors for proteolytic enzymes. Götz's graduate research is published in several peer-reviewed journals including Biological Chemistry, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry. She also has two patents pending for the discovery of novel anti-parasitic agents.

Götz continued her research in a post-doctoral position in the Bioorganic Chemistry group led by Professor Luis Moroder at the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich, Germany. Her post-doctoral work succeeded in the synthesis of natural product analogs of the fungal metabolite, TMC-95, with promising therapeutic potential for the treatment of cancer.

As a citizen of Germany, Götz enjoys attending the weekly Stammtisch at Whitman. Stammtisch means regular's table in the German language and signifies an informal and friendly get-together. The Stammtisch is hosted by Whitman's German studies department for German speakers and learners. 

Götz's research involves drug design and synthesis, with a particular focus on fighting Alzheimer's disease, sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease and cancer.