Richard N. Zare is the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University with an appointment in the Department of Chemistry and a courtesy appointment in the Department of Physics.

He graduated from Harvard University [B.A. degree in chemistry and physics (1961); Ph.D. in chemical physics (1964)] before becoming an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1965). In 1966 he moved to JILA, University of Colorado at Boulder, remaining there until 1969, when he was appointed full professor in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University. In 1977 he moved to Stanford University, where he is presently Chair of the Chemistry Department. Professor Zare is renowned in the area of lasers applied to chemical reactions and to chemical analysis. He is the recipient of many awards including the National Medal of Science (1983), the Welch Award in Chemistry (1999), the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2005), the Priestley Medal of the American Chemical Society (2010), and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers in Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences (2010).

Dr. Zare received the King Faisal International Prize in Science (2011).