Claire Castro received her undergraduate degree in Botany from UC Berkeley and her PhD in Organic Chemistry from UCLA. Her graduate work focused on the synthesis of nucleoside analogs with the aim of developing a versatile method for making anti-retroviral compounds. During her post-doctoral work at UCLA, Claire worked on synthetic methods for the construction of medium-sized lactones. Claire joined the USF faculty in 1994. During her first sabbatical in 2001 she changed her research area to computational organic chemisty. In collaboration with her colleague/husband William Karney, she has worked with 21 undergraduates in this field. These undergraduates have contributed to 13 published papers (11 in American Chemical Society journals). In large part their work has been funded by three consecutive National Science Foundation grants. In recognition of her contributions in the classroom and the lab, Claire has received both the Distinguished Teaching Award and the Distinguished Research Award at USF.