Tim Cernak studied organic synthesis at University of British Columbia Okanagan (BSc 2002), McGill University (PhD 2007), and Columbia University (Postdoc 2007–2009) before starting a career in the pharmaceutical industry at Merck Research Labs.
Following 9 years at Merck's Rahway and Boston sites exploring chemistry informatics and automation, Tim Cernak joined academia as an Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Michigan. The Cernak Lab is exploring an interface of data science and chemical synthesis, with an interest in applying hardware and software automation to synthetic organic challenges.