专业描述

Our department has a long, proud tradition of collaborative research between students and faculty, including the first reported synthesis of ferrocene (the first metal "sandwich compound") by a young Assistant Professor named Peter Pauson and his graduate student, Thomas Kealy, in 1951. We continue that tradition of innovation and passionate engagement in teaching, scholarship, and service to this day. An intimate, intellectually stimulating atmosphere of research and discovery in chemistry and multidisciplinary science pervades the department, engaging undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty in collaborative work to address some of society's most pressing current issues. Chemistry faculty and students in labOur award-winning faculty of three teaching and 15 tenure track professors currently includes three Fellows of the American Chemical Society, National Science Foundation Career awardees, a winner of multiple R&D 100 Awards, patent holders, editors of professional journals, and multiple winners of university awards for teaching, scholarship, and service. Although our program is organized around the traditional fields of Analytical, Biochemistry, Inorganic, Organic, and Physical Chemistry, interdisciplinary strengths in Biomolecular, Computational, and Environmental Chemistry take us to the frontiers of chemical research and its applications. Our graduate program fosters active learning through a research-based curriculum beginning with two, semester-long research "rotations", continuing with a formal dissertation outline and data defense, and culminating in the dissertation defense itself. Chemistry student in labThroughout their graduate careers, our award-winning students examine emerging scientific problems of fundamental importance, with practical implications for our broader society. Students also have ample opportunity to develop critical non-technical skills such as communication, teamwork, and leadership by writing papers, presenting talks and posters, and volunteering to serve on departmental committees such as the Student Safety Committee. Duquesne's Center for Teaching Excellence is a unique resource that offers faculty and student teaching assistants the opportunity for early feedback on courses, a series of workshops on classroom or laboratory pedagogy, and the opportunity to build a teaching portfolio attesting to special accomplishments in teaching. Opportunities also abound for collaborations with our Biology Department and School of Pharmacy, as well as companies, government labs, and other universities in the Pittsburgh area and beyond. Our vibrant undergraduate program is also designed to teach students to think like scientists by doing science. Our chemistry and biochemistry majors start their college careers with enquiry-based laboratories and end with two semesters of "Integrated Laboratory" where they address miniature research questions. In between, students are offered internships at industry leaders such as Bayer and Valspar and welcomed into research laboratories as early as possible, where they work side-by-side with professors and graduate studChemistry students in labents. All students thus have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with our modern research instrumentation in mass spectrometry, NMR, powder and single-crystal X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and high-performance computing, funded in part by nine NSF/MRI grants secured over the past 14 years. Major facilities include the Agilent Center of Excellence in Mass Spectrometry, the university's Center for Computational Sciences and the Center for Metals in Biological Systems. Concurrently, we maintain a strong sense of community within the Department by ensuring small class sizes and engaging students with our award-winning ACS Student Members organization. Scholarship opportunities-funded by Bayer MaterialScience, the NSF S-STEM program, and the Crable endowment-are abundant and augmented with close faculty mentoring. Summer research opportunities also abound, currently funded by the NSF/REU program (12 years), NIH/SRE program (five years), the NSF/S-STEM program (three years), the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Science, and individual research grants. Each Summer, our research program engages 35-45 undergraduates and each Spring the Department and the Bayer School fund the travel of 15-20 undergraduate researchers to present their work at the American Chemical Society national meeting.