CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT:
Professor Nicholas E. Geacintov

DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES:
Associate Professor Mark Tuckerman mark.tuckerman@nyu.edu

Chemistry at New York University has a long and distinguished tradition. The American Chemical Society was founded in 1876 in the original University building at Washington Square, and the head of the chemistry department, John W. Draper, served as its first president. Draper was an early pioneer in the development of photography, working with Samuel F. B. Morse. In 2001, the American Chemical Society officially designated the site on which the chemistry department is located as a Historical Chemical Landmark. Robert Morrison and Robert Boyd, who both taught in the department, coauthored a textbook on organic chemistry that has trained a whole generation of chemists. Gertrude Elion, winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, received her M.S. from New York University. New York University’s programs in chemistry have trained thousands of B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. students since awarding its first Ph.D. in 1866.

The department has about 18 faculty members directing research, approximately 70 full-time graduate students, and a substantial number of postdoctoral fellows and affiliated scientists. Recently, the department established the Molecular Design Institute, headed by Professor Michael D. Ward (see below) focusing on research in nano- and biomaterials design. Seminars and colloquia are a regular part of the departmental programs, and visiting scientists and students from all parts of the country and abroad present the results of current research. Distinguished guest speakers are drawn from academic and industrial institutions throughout the world. These visits expose graduate students to diverse and cutting-edge research work and allow them to exchange ideas with leading scientists.

Faculty

Paramjit S. Arora, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 1999 (chemistry), California (Irvine); B.S. 1992 (chemistry), California (Berkeley).
Organic chemistry, bioorganic chemistry and molecular recognition.

Zlatko Bacˇic´, Professor. Ph.D. 1981 (chemistry), Utah; B.S. 1977 (chemistry), Zagreb.
Accurate quantum treatment of the spectroscopy of floppy molecules and clusters; vibrational predissociation of weakly bound complexes; solvent effects on the photofragmentation of small molecules.

Henry C. Brenner, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1972 (chemistry), Chicago; B.S. 1968 (chemistry), Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Physical chemistry: luminescence and energy transfer in condensed phases; optical and magnetic resonance studies of molecular crystals and biological systems.

Ronald J. Callahan, Clinical Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1989 (organic chemistry), M.S. 1980 (chemistry), New York; B.A. 1977 (chemistry), Queens College (CUNY).
Development of chemistry teaching programs.

James W. Canary, Professor; Associate Chair, Department of Chemistry. Ph.D. 1988 (organic chemistry), California (Los Angeles); B.S. 1982 (chemistry), California (Berkeley).
Organic and bioorganic chemistry, molecular switches, DNA-directed polymer assembly, fluorescent probes, and targeted MRI contrast agents for bio-imaging.

John Spencer Evans, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1993 (chemistry), California Institute of Technology; D.D.S. 1982, Illinois; B.S. 1978, Northwestern.
Biomimetic or “nature”–based materials; macromolecule-interfacial interactions; biomineralization; nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy; protein structure determination; mass spectrometry; and computational chemistry.

Paul J. Gans, Professor. Ph.D. 1959 (chemistry and chemical physics), Case Institute of Technology; B.S. 1954 (chemistry), Ohio State.
Theoretical chemistry; determination of conformational and thermodynamic properties of macromolecules by Monte Carlo simulation.

Nicholas E. Geacintov, Professor; Chair, Department of Chemistry. Ph.D. 1961 (physical and polymer chemistry), M.S. 1959 (physical and polymer chemistry), B.S. 1957 (physical and polymer chemistry), Syracuse.
Physical and biophysical chemistry; interaction of polycyclic aromatic carcinogens with nucleic acids; laser studies of fluorescence mechanisms and photoinduced electron transfer.

Burt Goldberg, Clinical Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1989, Cardiff; M.Phil. 1984, Mount Sinai School of Medicine; B.S. 1974, Pace.
Regulation and control of the bioenergetic metabolic pathways of parasitic protozoans; development of chemistry teaching programs.

John M. Halpin, Clinical Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1994 (physical chemistry), M.S. 1986 (chemistry), B.S. 1984 (chemistry), New York.
Development of chemistry teaching programs.

Alexej Jerschow, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 1997, B.S. 1994, Linz.
NMR spectroscopy, imaging, and microscopy; theory and applications in materials sciences, biophysics, and quantum computation.

Maitland Jones, Jr., Professor. Ph.D. 1963, B.S. 1959, Yale.
Development of chemistry teaching programs.

Neville R. Kallenbach, Professor. Ph.D. 1961 (physical chemistry), Yale; B.S. 1958 (chemistry and mathematics), Rutgers.
Protein structure, function, stability and folding; properties of alpha helical coiled coils; design of antimicrobial peptides and mimetics.

Kent Kirshenbaum, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 1999 (chemistry), California (San Francisco); B.A. 1994 (chemistry), Reed College.
Bioorganic chemistry; biomimetic chemistry; protein conformation and dynamics; macromolecular design.

Barry Rugg, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1972 (chemical engineering), M.S. 1967 (chemical engineering), B.S. 1965 (chemical engineering), New York.
Development of chemistry teaching programs.

Tamar Schlick, Professor, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics. Ph.D. 1987 (applied mathematics), M.S. 1985 (mathematics), New York; B.S. 1982 (mathematics), Wayne State.
Computational chemistry and biology; molecular dynamics; simulations of proteins and nucleic acids; DNA supercoiling; protein folding; DNA/protein interactions; polymerase mechanisms.

Nadrian C. Seeman, Professor. Ph.D. 1970 (biochemistry and crystallography), Pittsburgh; B.S. 1966 (biochemistry), Chicago.
Structure and topology of branched, knotted, and catenated DNA molecules, as they relate to genetic recombination and to nanotechnology.

Mark Tuckerman, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1993 (physics), Columbia; B.S. 1986 (physics), California (Berkeley).
Theoretical statistical mechanics and methodology of classical and ab initio molecular dynamics; applications to biological and materials sciences, including hybrid organic/semiconductor structures, proton transport, conformational equilibria of macromolecules, drug-enzyme interactions, and compound design.

Alexander V. Vologodskii, Research Professor. D.Sc. 1985 (physics and mathematics), Moscow; Ph.D. 1975 (physics and mathematics), M.S. 1972 (molecular biophysics), Moscow Physical-Technical Institute.
Statistical-mechanical properties of DNA; supercoiling; catenanes.

Marc Anton Walters, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1981 (chemistry), Princeton; B.S. 1976 (chemistry), City College (CUNY).
Bioinorganic chemistry; study of redox potentials in electron transfer proteins; noncovalent influence on the modulation of the redox potentials.

Michael D. Ward, Professor; Director, Molecular Design Institute. Ph.D. 1981 (chemistry), Princeton; B.A. 1977 (chemistry), William Paterson College of New Jersey.
Nanoscience and materials design; synthesis/assembly of organic molecular crystals; hydrogen-bond networks; crystal growth, atomic force microscopy.

Marcus Weck, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1999 (chemistry), California Institute of Technology; M.S. 1994 (chemistry), Mainz.
Organic and polymer chemistry, nanoscience, biomaterials, catalysis, supramolecular chemistry, materials science.

John Z. H. Zhang, Professor. Ph.D. 1987 (chemical physics), Houston; B.S. 1982 (physics), East China Normal.
Theoretical studies of molecular collision dynamics; chemical reactions in the gas phase and on surfaces.

Yingkai Zhang, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2000 (computational and theoretical chemistry), Duke; B.S. 1993 (chemistry), Nanjing.
Computational biochemistry and biophysics: multiscale modeling of biological systems, enzyme catalysis, and biomolecular recognition.

AFFILIATED FACULTY

Suse Broyde, Professor, Biology. Ph.D. 1963 (physical chemistry), Polytechnic (Brooklyn); B.S. (chemistry) 1958, City College (CUNY).
Molecular structure, especially conformations of nucleic acids; distortion of normal DNA conformations under the influence of polycyclic aromatic chemical carcinogens; interaction of a carcinogenic agent with DNA as the initiating event of carcinogenesis leading to a somatic mutation that ultimately causes cell transformation; influence of adduct conformation on whether or not a given carcinogen-DNA adduct causes a mutation or replication; elucidation on a molecular level of how the conformation of DNA is altered by a carcinogen.

ADJUNCT FACULTY

Janice Cutler, Adjunct Professor. Ph.D. 1946, B.S. 1937, New York.

FACULTY EMERITI

Jules Moskowitz, Martin Pope, David I. Schuster, Robert Shapiro, Benson Sundheim.