Chemistry is the central science. Chemists are able to design and create new forms of matter that can possess extraordinary and sometimes even useful properties. Chemists can explain the behaviors of matter that non-chemists find mystifying. For these reasons, progress in many fields depends upon contributions and advances from chemists and chemistry. Our field is flourishing as we enter the 21st century.
Research in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington is representative of the state-of-the-art in our discipline: it is exciting and new. It is vibrant and useful. It is interdisciplinary and disciplinary. Our faculty, our postdoctoral research associates, our graduate students, and our staff (nearly 400 of us in all) have come from all over the world to pursue our shared passion: the discovery of new chemistry!
We hope you will take a moment to read the brief descriptions of ongoing research in the many research areas explored in the Department of Chemistry. These descriptions cannot begin to communicate the excitement of research; if the pursuit of chemistry is your passion, we hope you will visit us to learn more about our program. If you do, experience tells us there is a good chance you’ll be back to study with us.
The absolute configurations of the bitter acids of hops determined
Werner Kaminsky, Research Associate Professor and Department Crystallographer, working with researchers at KinDex Therapeutics and the University of Washington, has recently determined the absolute configurations of the acids from hops that give beer its charactersistic bitter flavor. More...
CENTC receives NSF reauthorization for $20 million
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $20 million grant over five years in reauthorizing the Center for Enabling New Technologies Through Catalysis based at the University of Washington, Department of Chemistry. More...
Science paper explores proton-coupled electron transfer in metal oxide nanoparticles
A recent publication in Science by Professor James Mayer and coworkers explores the transfer of electrons and protons in titanium and zinc oxide nanoparticles. This new research indicates that the usual description of these reactions as electron transfers is incomplete - that the reactions can be more accurately described as proton-coupled electron transfers. More...