text: Robert Dirks (May 29, 1978 – February 3, 2015) was an American chemist known for his theoretical and experimental work in DNA nanotechnology. Born in Thailand to a Thai Chinese mother and American father, he moved to Spokane, Washington at a young age. Dirks was the first graduate student in Niles Pierce's research group at the California Institute of Technology, where his dissertation work was on algorithms and computational tools to analyze nucleic acid thermodynamics and predict their structure. He also performed experimental work developing a biochemical chain reaction to self-assemble nucleic acid devices.  Dirks later worked at D. E. Shaw Research on algorithms for protein folding that could be used to design new pharmaceuticals.
  In February 2015, Dirks died in the Valhalla train crash, the deadliest accident in the history of Metro-North Railroad. An award for early-career achievement in molecular programming research was established in his honor.