Chemistry

Graduate Program

Welcome to Bryn Mawr Chemistry

Since the founding of Bryn Mawr in 1885, the Department of Chemistry has offered programs leading to either the M.A. or Ph.D. degrees. The graduate program in chemistry is designed to prepare men and women for professional careers in research and teaching by providing them with a sound background in modern chemistry.

Our students have the opportunity to learn chemistry through exceptionally close interactions with the faculty who have a special interest in teaching as well as research. The number of students participating in a graduate seminar typically ranges between three and eight. Students are kept aware of the latest developments in chemistry through the departmental colloquium, where faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and students gather to hear chemists from other institutions present their latest research, and many other opportunities on campus and in the Philadelphia area.

Current Research Activities
  • organic synthesis and methodology development
  • enzyme inhibitor design and development
  • organic photochemistry; synthesis and investigation of solubilized "graphite ribbons"
  • solid state studies of intramolecular rotation of alkyl groups attached to aromatic rings
  • ab initio molecular orbital calculations applied to reaction mechanisms
  • materials science
  • DNA interactions with metal complexes
  • nanomaterial synthesis and testing
  • transition metal complexes involving heterocyclic ligands
  • metalloenzyme model studies
  • biochemical and biophysical studies of the structure, stability, and protein binding of RNA molecules.
  • More
Outstanding Laboratory Facilities
  • 300 MHz (NMR) spectrometer (signup)
  • Atomic-Force Microscope
  • GC-MS
  • FT-IR's
  • Fluorescence spectrophotometer
  • UV-Vis spectrophotometers
  • HPLC's
  • Liquid scintillation counter
  • Cold rooms
  • Ultracentrifuge
  • Potentiostats and Biopotentiostat
  • Machine shop
  • Four computational servers with Gaussian 03 and Sybyl 6.92
  • Outstanding library resources (Scifinder Scholar, internet journal access)
  • More
What Our Students Do Next?
Postdoctoral Appointments
  • Stanford University
  • U. of California, Santa Cruz
  • University of Pittsburgh
  • University of Pennsylvania
Faculty Positions
  • Chestnut Hill College
  • Eastern College
  • Haverford College
  • University of New Haven
Industrial Research Positions
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb
  • BSAF
  • DuPont
  • GlaxoSmithKline
  • Merck
  • Roche BioScience
  • Wyeth
 
Typically about 85% of the graduate students in the Dept of Chem are women and 15% are men. They come to us from Franklin and Marshall College, Bucknell University, St. Joseph's University, Gettysburg College, Haverford College, Wilson College, Elizabethtown College, Randolph-Macon College, University of Pennsylvania, Shanghai University, Nanjing University, and University of Montreal.