Chemist Eric Eberhardt ’87 combines research, scholarship and teaching. Eric joined the Vassar College faculty in 1997 after completing his postdoctoral research at the Enzyme Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his B.S. in chemistry from St. Lawrence.

Eric’s research interests lie at the interface of biology and chemistry. He is interested in the molecular interactions that determine the structure and function of proteins. Currently, he is exploring the role of hydrophobic amino acids that are buried in the interior of tick anticoagulant peptide (TAP), which is an inhibitor of the coagulation enzyme factor Xa. He is also examining the role that charged surface amino acids play in conferring stability to thermophilic proteins.

Eric has received funding from the National Science Foundation. His research has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Tetrahedron Letters, Biochemistry, and Protein Science.