Stephen J. Lippard is an American bioinorganic chemist and the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lippard was born on October 12, 1940 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Lippard studies biological interactions involving metal ions, focusing on reactions and physical and structural properties of metal complexes. Such complexes can be useful as cancer drugs and as models for the active sites of metalloproteins. Metal ions also promote key biological reactions in enzymes and metal complexes can be employed to sense biological signaling agents. In 2006, Lippard received the 2004 National Medal of Science, the highest science honor in the United States. He was cited for “pioneering research in bioinorganic chemistry, including the interaction of metal compounds with DNA, preparation of synthetic models for metalloproteins, and structural and mechanistic studies of methane monooxygenase." He holds the 2009 Linus Pauling Medal.