About the Department
On behalf of the Chemistry Department at Temple University, I am pleased to welcome you to our web site.
This site describes one of the most dynamic chemistry programs in the Nation. Our
Department, located in the city of Philadelphia, has numerous faculty working in state-of-the-art research fields that include synthetic chemistry, biochemistry, ultra-fast laser chemistry, spectroscopy, and smart detectors. In conjunction with other Departments and Centers, interdisciplinary, world-class research is the model at Temple University. Explore this web site to find out the exciting possibilities for your advanced degree.
The University, with academic roots going back to 1850, is located in historic and beautiful Philadelphia. The City and surrounding area serve as a major hub for pharmaceutical, biomedical and petroleum research and development with the majority of the US chemical industry located within a one-hour drive from our Campus.
In addition, as a student at Temple University you can enjoy all of excellent cultural opportunities that the University and the city of Philadelphia have to offer. These range from a world-class symphony orchestra and several chamber music societies to art museums, libraries and unparalleled historical sites.
If what you see here interests you, please contact us at chemgrad@temple.edu to plan a visit.
Temple Chemistry 2006 Progress Statement:
The past year has been productive for the Chemistry Department at Temple University. Frank Davis has been honored as a Cope Scholar by the American Chemical Society and Robert Levis was inducted as a Fellow of the American Physical Society. The work of Eric Borguet has been featured in Chemical and Engineering News for his nanolithography research and Levis recently spoke about "Evolving Laser Pulses for Chemistry: From Reaction Control to Weapons Detection" at the Philadelphia Section American Chemical Society meeting. The Department has blanketed the nearby States with a variety of seminars and talks to get the word to prospective students about the exciting environment in Temple Chemistry. This has been a banner recruiting year at the graduate and undergraduate level.
Enrollment in Chemistry classes has risen to unprecedented levels and we have hired a number of new faculty to meet the demand. Currently there are 17 Presidential, 16 Lecturers and 10 Adjunct Professors in the Department.
External funding in the Department has grown from $1 million in 2000 to $ 4.5 million in 2005, a gain of over 450%. This is largely due to the extraordinary efforts of the faculty in obtaining federal research dollars. More graduate students are now supported in the Department than there have ever been in the past.
The Department is pleased to announce that Dr. Rodrigo Andrade has joined us as an Assistant Professor with research interests in the area of bioactive natural products and the synthesis of carbohydrate-based drugs and vaccines. Dr. Andrade obtained his BA from Johns Hopkins and Ph.D. from MIT.
Stanley, Borguet Strongin and Levis have organized a series of symposia at National ACS meetings and we were extremely well-represented at the Pacifichem meeting. The Department recently hosted an international meeting on Ultrafast Chemistry and Physics.
Our graduate students are winning prizes both within the University and in the Philadelphia area for excellence in research and more undergraduates are working in laboratories than ever before. Last year more than 30 undergraduates participated in independent research in our Department.
We are in the middle of a 25 million dollar renovation plan and the Department and College are enhancing this renovation to provide strategic investment in our Central Instrument Facility, Computer Rooms and Study Areas. We invite all alumni and graduates to stop by and see the progress.
The Department has a number of new initiatives focused on preparing our Temple University undergraduates to be highly competitive upon graduation. To begin, we have raised the bar for admission to most of our Chemistry classes. For those students that require some “fine tuning” for University level chemistry we have rolled out a new preparatory course, Chem 55, Applications of Chemistry. In Chemistry 61, we are developing a new "learning to learn" teaching philosophy to prepare students for the rigors of the health sciences curriculum. Dr. Jansen has received a major NSF grant for developing new science teaching methodology. Finally, we have invested heavily in our TA and lecturer recruiting to provide all classes with expert laboratory and recitation instructors.
Undergraduate research has boomed in recent years. In the summer of 2006 there were no less than 20 undergraduate research assistantships in the Department. Most of the positions came from Federally-funded research, eight in the Center for Advanced Photonics Research alone, and two from the University Diamond Scholars Program.