Dr. Courey, who is from Buffalo, New York, joined the UCLA faculty in 1990 and was promoted to full professor in 1999. He has served the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry as Graduate Advisor (2003-2005), Vice Chair for Education (2001-2005), and Chair (2008-2012). He also serves on the Advisory Committee of the Molecular Biology Interdepartmental Program and is one of the founders of the Gene Regulation Interdepartmental Program. Dr. Courey has instructed a course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in Protein Purification and Characterization every spring since 1996. His lab uses Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism to study transcriptional control mechanisms as well as the cell and developmental biology of SUMO, a ubiquitin-family protein. Dr. Courey has authored a textbook entitled Mechanisms in Transcriptional Regulation (Blackwell Publishing Company). He is an avid pianist and holds a Bachelor's degree in Piano Performance from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music.