Research – Chemistry & Biochemistry

Cutting-Edge Research and Collaborative Excellence

Our department’s intellectual strengths include very collegial and high quality faculty, vibrant research on the forefront of science, expanding research facilities, and the integration of both graduate and undergraduate education into our research endeavors.

Chemistry and Biochemistry is traditionally divided into four subdisciplines, biochemistry/biophysical, physical, organic/bioorganic, and inorganic/bioinorganic. A distinctive characteristic of our department is the extensive collaboration among faculty in the different subdisciplines and across departments and divisions, blurring the traditional boundaries and allowing researchers to address a given problem with an arsenal of specialized synthetic, instrumental, and computational strategies.

The main strengths of the department lie in the areas of Materials Science and Biomedical Science, with many faculty being associated with both of these discipinles.

Explore our faculty’s research expertise by discipline:

Materials Research

The Materials Research Initiative aims to advance specific energy, sensing, and environmental applications. The main focus areas include the design, synthesis, and characterization of novel nano-materials, and novel polymers, and new classes of inorganic materials with unique properties. The goal is fundamental understanding of the properties of these materials and applications in energy conversion, cancer detection, biomedical imaging, the development of new materials to avoid environmental contamination, catalysis, separations, and remediation of environmentally hazardous pollutants.

three people with blue lab coats working in a lab

Browse our faculty experts

Inorganic/Bioinorganic

Timothy C Johnstone

Title
- Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Scott R Oliver

Title
- Professor

Organic

Rebecca Braslau

Title
- Professor

Physical/Theoretical

Alexander Ayzner

Title
- Associate Professor

Ilan Benjamin

Title
- Distinguished Professor

Shaowei Chen

Title
- Professor

Yat Li

Title
- Professor

Xiao Wang

Title
- Assistant Professor

Jin Zhong Zhang

Title
- Distinguished Professor and Chair

Biomedical Research

The Biomedical Research Initiative aims to advance our molecular understanding of human disease, as well as to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic tools. Research focuses on various human pathologies, including cancer, neurodegenerative, metabolic, and inflammatory diseases. This fundamental research into the molecular basis of human disease is complemented by drug screening and discovery of therapeutic compounds from natural (marine) organisms and through synthesis.