Brian T. Chait was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He received his B. Sc. (1969) and B. Sc. (Hons) (1970) from the University of Cape Town and D.Phil. (1977) in experimental nuclear physics from University of Oxford. He is currently Camille and Henry Dreyfus Professor at Rockefeller University in New York, where he is Head of the Laboratory for Mass Spectrometry and Gaseous Ion Chemistry. Brian Chait is a leader in the development of novel tools for mass spectrometry, work that has yielded 31 US patents. His laboratory has used mass spectrometry and other analytical techniques to help understand the molecular machinery within cells.