Kenneth D. Karlin was born on October 30, 1948, in Pasadena, California, a professor of chemistry at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.  Research in his group focuses on coordination chemistry relevant to biological and environmental processes, involving copper or heme complexes. Of particular interest are reactivities of such complexes with nitrogen oxides, O, and the oxidation of substrates by the resultant compounds. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the book series Progress in Inorganic Chemistry.