Dr. R. J. Pieters studied organic chemistry at the University of Groningen (MSc. 1990) where he worked on metal complexes with Prof. Ben Feringa. During his studies he was also an exchange research student with Prof. Mike Doyle (Trinity University, San Antonio, TX) on the development of chiral rhodium catalysts for enantioselective cyclopropanation catalysis. He completed his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he worked with Prof. Julius Rebek Jr. on enzyme-like catalysis with synthetic receptors (Ph.D. 1995). Following post-doctoral stays at the ETH-Zürich (with Prof. François Diederich) working on enantioselective synthetic receptors and at the University of Groningen (with Profs. Kellogg and Janssen) working on enzymatic catalysis, he joined the Department of Medicinal Chemistry as an assistant professor in 1998. He became an associate professor in 2005. His current research interests include synthesis and biomolecular recognition of carbohydrate and peptide derivatives, combinatorial chemistry and glycomics.