Kenneth Reinhard Poeppelmeier (born 6 October 1949) is the Charles E. & Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University.
Poeppelmeier was raised in St. Charles, Missouri. He completed a bachelor's degree in chemistry from University of Missouri and, after serving in the Peace Corps, he attended Iowa State University where he was an awarded a doctorate in 1978 under the direction of John Corbett. After working at Exxon for six years, he joined the Northwestern University chemistry faculty in 1984. At Northwestern, his groups work has focused on the role of synthesis and materials design with applications in superconductivity, nonlinear optical materials, catalysis, and energy storage. From 1995-2015, he was the materials editor for the American Chemical Society journal Inorganic Chemistry