Message from Chair of the Chemistry Department
We are pleased that you are taking the time to explore the Department of Chemistry at the University at Buffalo (UB) through our web site. For those of you who are using these pages to consider us as a home for your undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate educational experience, we extend a special welcome.
The UB Department of Chemistry has a long tradition and strong commitment to excellence in research, service and teaching. The Department has offered advanced degrees for over seventy years and, since the merger of UB with the State University of New York system, has seen its efforts in both arenas grow dramatically. At this time more than one hundred and forty graduate students and dozens of postdoctoral fellows and research staff are active in the research of the Department faculty.
The research interests within the Department are quite broad and span the full range of the traditional chemistry disciplines and its emerging interfaces with biology, engineering, medicine and physics. As you will see from the individual faculty profiles, the Department is broadly represented in analytical, physical, inorganic, organic and medicinal chemistry. Each area of chemistry also benefits from collaborative and academic affiliations with faculty in the Schools of Engineering, Dental Medicine, Medicine and Pharmacy plus the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute. In addition, UB has an unusual number of research centers and thrusts in Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics; Structural Biology; Integrated Nanostructured Systems; Bioinformatics and the Life Sciences; Molecular Recognition; Biomedical Engineering; Electronic and Electro-optic Materials; Biosurfaces; Materials Science; Super Computing; and Environmental Studies. All these transdisciplinary efforts involve chemistry faculty and provide a wonderfully enriching environment for both research and education.
The tremendous growth and productivity of the UB Department of Chemistry has resulted in the construction of the Natural Sciences Complex which is our primary home. Completed in 1994, the $49 M structure contains all of the architectural and engineering amenities associated with modern chemical research. As part of this general reinvestment in chemical research, the Department also received almost ten million dollars for purchase of new equipment. Accordingly, we are the envy of many having a modern building and an extraordinary infrastructure of equipment with which to pursue our research into the 21st century.
The Department maintains a collegial and friendly environment for students and faculty alike. Our graduate students are also very active and coordinate many of our social and scientific events. Some of the latter, like the Graduate Students’ Symposium, have attracted international attendance and general acclaim. Some of the former, like basketball, volleyball and softball games, have merely served to embarrass our faculty! All together, we strive to make the time spent here enjoyable as well as productive and educational.
On behalf of my colleagues, I encourage you to consider Chemistry at the University at Buffalo.
Professor Luis A. Colón, Chair
