Felicia Etzkorn was born in St. Louis, MO. She has been interested in the environment since 6th grade when Frances Scheidegger started a recycling center in her home town. Her high school biology teacher, Mrs. Grote, stimulated her interest in cleaning up the environment and guided her towards a career in chemistry. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry at Missouri State University. She was an Associate Radiochemist at Midwest Research Institute for four years, synthesizing 3H and 14C-labeled compounds for cancer and toxicology research, before earning her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley with Paul A. Bartlett on the Design, Synthesis and Evaluation of Tendamistat Mimics: Inhibitors of ¿-Amylase. She was an NIH Post-doctoral Associate at Harvard Medical School, where she performed research on Immunosuppression with the Cyclosporin-Human Cyclophilin A Complex with Christopher T. Walsh. She has been a Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Tech since 2000. Her research is on the effects of cis-trans proline isomerization on the mechanisms of cell cycle regulation, transcription, and collagen triple-helix folding. At Virginia Tech, she created one of the earliest courses in Green Chemistry, taught every spring since 2006, and she has been teaching the course to ever more enthusiastic students. Etzkorn regularly participates in the annual ACS Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference.

Prevent Waste; Synthetic Efficiency; Benign Synthesis; Benign Products; Avoid Auxiliaries; Energy Efficiency; Renewable Feedstocks; Avoid Protecting Groups; Catalysis; Degradation or Recovery; Real-time Analysis; Prevent Accidents