Mary Jo Ondrechen, Ph.D. is Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology on the Boston campus of Northeastern University. She received an ACS certified Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Reed College in Portland, OR and the PhD degree in Physical Chemistry / Chemical Physics from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Her research deals with understanding enzyme catalysis, inventing methods to predict the biochemical function of proteins from their 3D structure, developing design principles for novel enzymes, improving enzymatic RNA synthesis, and the molecular modeling aspects of structure-based drug discovery. A member of Mohawk Nation and an advocate for STEM diversity, she was the 2011-2013 Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). Her work is funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2021 she was a Fulbright Faculty Research Fellow in Budapest, Hungary. She is the 2024 recipient of the Technical Excellence Award of AISES.