Patrick Harran (b 1969) was raised in upstate New York and first trained in chemistry at Skidmore College (BA 1990). He attended Yale University for graduate work with Frederick Ziegler, completing his doctorate in 1995. After an NIH-sponsored postdoctoral fellowship with Paul Wender at Stanford University, Harran joined the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 1997. He was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2002 and Professor in 2005.

Harran has been a Fellow of the Alfred P Sloan Foundation, the recipient of a CAREER award from the NSF, an Eli Lilly Grantee, the AstraZenenca Excellence in Chemistry Award, the Pfizer Award for Creativity in Organic Synthesis, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Skidmore College, and Merck Chemistry Council Awards. In 2005 he was awarded the E. Bright Wilson Prize from Harvard University and named the Mar Nell and F Andrew Bell Distinguished Chair in Biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. In 2007 he received the Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research from the Robert A Welch Foundation. In July 2008 Harran re-located to Los Angeles to accept the inaugural Donald J. & Jane M. Cram Chair in Organic Chemistry at UCLA. In 2009 he was named the Glenn T. Seaborg award winner by Alpha Chi Sigma.