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Detailed Information

Program of Study

The Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology offers a program of study that leads to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in chemistry in the special fields of biological, inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry. An interdepartmental Ph.D. program in chemical physics is also available. Upon entering the program, students formulate a plan of study in consultation with a Curriculum Advising Committee. Students must obtain honor grades in four advanced half courses (five for chemical physics). The course work is usually expected to be completed by the end of the second term of residence. All students must present and defend a research proposal in their second year of residence. Although the curriculum for the Ph.D. degree includes the course, research proposal, and oral defense requirements, the majority of the graduate student’s time and energy is devoted to original investigations in a chosen field of research. Students are expected to join a research group in their second term of residence, but no later than the third. The Ph.D. dissertation is based on independent scholarly research, which, upon conclusion, is defended in an oral examination before a Ph.D. committee. The preparation of a satisfactory thesis normally requires at least four years of full-time research.

Research Facilities

The facilities of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology are housed in five buildings in the Cabot Science Complex, with the adjacent Science Center providing major undergraduate lecture and laboratory areas. Three centers of research provide a central location for the following research instruments: for NMR research, one Bruker Avance 700-MHz NMR, one Varian 600-MHz NMR, three Varian 500-MHz NMRs, two Varian 400-MHz NMRs, one Varian 300-MHz NMR, and one Bruker ESP 300 EPR spectrometer; for mass spectroscopy, a JEOL-SX102A mass spectrometer, a Micromass LCT Platform II mass spectrometer equipped with APCI ionization, a Waters Q-Tof micro MS/MS mass spectrometer equipped with both electrospray and APCI ionization, an Agilent 6890/5973 GC-MS (gas chromatography–mass spectrometer), and an Applied Biosystems MALDI (matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer); and for X-ray crystallography, two Bruker X-ray diffractometers, both with area-detection systems using Apex detectors. Computing in the Department is done mostly on workstations in individual research groups, with more than 1,200 devices linked by a Department-wide network. The Department, along with the Materials Research Laboratories at Harvard and MIT, operates and manages a Surface Sciences Center.

Financial Aid

The Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology meets the financial needs of its graduate students through Departmental scholarships, Departmental fellowships, teaching fellowships, research assistantships, and independent outside fellowships. Financial support is awarded on a twelve-month basis, enabling students to pursue their research throughout the year. Tuition is afforded to all graduate students in good standing for the tenure of the Ph.D. program.

Cost of Study

As stated in the Financial Aid section, tuition is waived for all Ph.D. students in good standing.

Living and Housing Costs

Dormitory rooms for single students are available, with costs (excluding meals) that ranged from $5167 for a single room to $8115 for a two-room suite in 2007–08. Married and single students may apply for apartments managed by Harvard Planning and Real Estate. The monthly costs are studio apartment, $844–$1778; one-bedroom apartment, $1064–$1791; two-bedroom apartment, $1238–$2466; and three-bedroom apartment, $1773–$2833. There are also many privately owned apartments nearby and within commuting distance.

Student Group

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) has an enrollment of about 3,700 graduate students. There are approximately 200 students in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, 35 percent of whom are international students.

Student Outcomes

In 2008, 23.5 percent of the Ph.D. recipients entered positions in academia, 20.5 percent accepted permanent positions in industry, 41 percent conducted postdoctoral research before accepting permanent positions in academia or industry, and 15 percent pursued other directions.

Location

Cambridge, a city of 101,355, is just minutes from Boston. It is a scientific and intellectual center, teeming with activities in all areas of creativity and study. The Cambridge/Boston area is a major cultural center, with its many public and university museums, theaters, symphony, and numerous private, special interest, and historical collections and performances. New England abounds in possibilities for recreational pursuits, from camping, hiking, and skiing in the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont to swimming and sailing on the seashores of Cape Cod and Maine.

The University

Harvard College was established in 1636, and its charter, which still guides the University, was granted in 1650. An early brochure, published in 1643, justified the College’s existence: “To advance Learning and perpetuate it to Posterity....” Today, Harvard University, with its network of graduate and professional schools, occupies a noteworthy position in the academic world, and the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology offers an educational program in keeping with the University’s long-standing record of achievement.

Applying

Applications for admission to study for the Ph.D. degree in chemistry may be accessed at the GSAS Web site at http://www.gsas.harvard.edu/apply/apply.php. Applications are accepted from students who have received a bachelor’s degree or equivalent. Online submission of the admission application is encouraged. If a paper application is utilized, the application and all supporting documents must be enclosed in the admission envelope to ensure full consideration.

The application process should begin during the summer or fall of the year preceding desired entrance. Completed online applications and any paper supporting materials should be returned to the GSAS Admissions Office by December 8, though this date may vary slightly from year to year.

The Faculty and Their Research

• Joanna Aizenberg, Gordon McKay Professor of Materials Science, Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology; Ph.D., Weizmann (Israel). Biomimetic inorganic materials synthesis, self-assembly, crystal engineering, surface chemistry, nanofabrication, biomaterials, biomechanics, biooptics.
• James G. Anderson, Professor; Ph.D. (physical chemistry), Colorado, 1970. Chemical reactivity of radical-molecule systems; molecular orbital analysis of barrier height control; coupling of chemistry, radiation, and climate in the earth system; photochemistry of planetary atmospheres; in situ detection of radicals in troposphere and stratosphere.
• Alan Aspuru-Guzik, Assistant Professor; Ph.D. (physical chemistry), Berkeley, 2004. Theoretical physical chemistry, quantum computation and its application to chemistry problems, development of electronic structure methods for atoms and molecules: density functional theory and quantum Monte Carlo, theoretical understanding and design of renewable energy materials.
• Theodore A. Betley, Assistant Professor; Ph.D. (inorganic chemistry), Caltech, 2005. Synthetic inorganic chemistry targeting chemical energy conversion, structure and reactivity of polymetallic and organometallic compounds.
• Adam E. Cohen, Assistant Professor; Ph.D. (physics), Cambridge, 2003, and Stanford, 2006. Single-molecule spectroscopy and biophysics; Brownian motion and feedback control; electrokinetics, polymer physics, fluctuation-induced forces; nonequilibrium van der Waals/Cashmir forces; instrumentation.
• Cynthia M. Friend, Professor; Ph.D. (physical chemistry), Berkeley, 1981. Physical chemistry of surface phenomena, materials chemistry and catalysis, electron spectroscopies and chemical techniques applied to the understanding of complex surface reactions, relating chemical processes to electronic structure on surfaces.
• Roy Gerald Gordon, Professor; Ph.D. (physical chemistry), Harvard, 1964. Intermolecular forces, transport processes and molecular motion, theory of crystal structures and phase transitions, kinetics of crystal growth, solar energy, chemical vapor deposition, synthesis of inorganic precursors to new materials, thin films and their applications to microelectronics and solar cells.
• Eric J. Heller, Professor; Ph.D. (chemical physics), Harvard, 1973. Few-body quantum mechanics, scattering theory, and quantum chaos; physics of semiconductor devices, ultracold molecular collisions, and nonadiabatic I interactions in molecules and gases.
• Eric N. Jacobsen, Professor; Ph.D. (organic chemistry), Berkeley, 1986. Mechanistic and synthetic organic chemistry; development of new synthetic methods, with emphasis on asymmetric catalysis; physical-organic studies of reactivity and recognition phenomena in homogeneous catalysis; stereoselective synthesis of natural products.
• Daniel Kahne, Professor; Ph.D. (organic chemistry), Columbia, 1986. Synthetic organic chemistry and its applications to problems in chemistry and biology.
• Charles M. Lieber, Professor; Ph.D. (physical chemistry), Stanford, 1985. Chemistry and physics of materials, with an emphasis on nanoscale systems; rational synthesis of new nanoscale building blocks and nanostructured solids; development of methodologies for hierarchical assembly of nanoscale building blocks into complex and functional systems; investigation of fundamental electronic, optical, and optoelectronic properties of nanoscale materials; design and development of nanoelectronics and nanophotonic systems, with emphasis on electrically based biological detection, digital and quantum computing, and photonic systems.
• David Liu, Professor; Ph.D. (organic chemistry and chemical biology), Berkeley, 1999. Organic chemistry and chemical biology of molecular evolution, nucleic acid–templated organic synthesis, reaction discovery, protein and nucleic acid evolution and engineering, synthetic polymer evolution; generally, effective molarity-based approaches to controlling reactivity and evolution-based approaches to the discovery of functional synthetic and biological molecules.
• Gavin MacBeath, Associate Professor; Ph.D. (organic chemistry and chemical biology), Scripps, 1997. Interdisciplinary, combining proteomics, organic chemistry, and the development of array-based technology to reveal how groups of proteins function as networks inside the cell.
• Andrew G. Myers, Professor; Ph.D. (organic chemistry), Harvard, 1985. Synthesis and study of complex organic molecules of importance in biology and human medicine.
• Erin O'Shea, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and Director of the Center for Systems Biology; Ph.D., MIT, 1992. Systems-level and molecular analysis of signaling pathways; transcriptional regulatory network architecture, function, and evolution; regulation and mechanism of oscillation of a circadian clock.
• Hongkun Park, Professor; Ph.D. (physical chemistry and chemical physics), Stanford, 1996. Physics and chemistry of nanostructured materials; electron transport in individual molecules, inorganic clusters, nanowires, and nanotubes; single-molecule optoelectronics; synthesis and characterization of transition-metal-oxide and chalcogenide nanostructures with novel electronic and magnetic properties.
• Tobias Ritter, Assistant Professor; Ph.D. (organic chemistry), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 2004. Synthetic organic and organometallic chemistry, development of new synthetic methods based on transition-metal catalysis, stereoselective synthesis of biologically active natural and unnatural products.
• Alan Saghatelian, Assistant Professor; Ph.D. (organic chemistry), California, San Diego (Scripps), 2002. Development and application of global metabolite profiling (metabolomics) as a general discovery tool for chemical biology.
• Stuart L. Schreiber, Professor; Ph.D. (organic synthesis), Harvard, 1981. Development and application of diversity-oriented organic synthesis to cell circuitry and genomic medicine.
• Matthew D. Shair, Professor; Ph.D. (synthetic chemistry and chemical biology), Columbia, 1995. Synthesis of small molecules that have interesting biological functions and elucidation of their cellular mechanisms, development of organic synthesis.
• Eugene I. Shakhnovich, Professor; Ph.D. (physical chemistry), Moscow, 1984. Theoretical biomolecular science, including protein folding, theory of molecular evolution, structural bioinformatics, rational drug design, populational genomics, and other systems, including complex polymers, spin glasses, etc.
• Gregory L. Verdine, Professor; Ph.D. (organic chemistry, chemical biology, structural biology), Columbia, 1986. DNA repair, transcriptional control, chemistry for the conversion of peptides to ligands having cellular activity.
• George M. Whitesides, Professor; Ph.D. (organic chemistry), Caltech, 1964. Physical organic chemistry, materials science, biophysics, complexity, surface science, microfluidics, self-assembly, microtechnology and nanotechnology, cell-surface biochemistry.
• X. Sunney Xie, Professor; Ph.D. (physical chemistry), California, San Diego, 1990. Biophysical chemistry, single-molecule spectroscopy and dynamics, developments of new approaches for molecular and cellular imaging.
• Xiaowei Zhuang, Professor; Ph.D. (physics), Berkeley, 1996. Biophysical chemistry, single-molecule biophysics, fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy, microscopic and nanoscopic imaging of biomolecular and cellular systems.
• Affiliate Members of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
• Jon Clardy, Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology (Medical School); Ph.D., Harvard, 1969. Discovery of biologically active small molecules using DNA-based approaches or high-throughput screening and chemical analysis, protein structure and enzymology, functioning of small molecules as carriers of biological information, new biosynthetic pathways, new microbial biology.
• Efthimios Kaxiras, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Professor of Physics (SEAS); Ph.D., MIT, 1987. Development of computational methodologies for coupling spatial and temporal scales; optical and electronic properties for nucleic acids, melanin, and flavonoids; structure and properties of carbon and other nanotubes, surface nanowires and nanodots, and graphene nanoflakes; effect of chemical impurities on the large-scale mechanical behavior of solids.
• Suzanne Walker, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. Chemical biology: synthetic organic chemistry applied to the study of biochemical molecules, enzymology, mechanism of action of antibiotics.
• Christopher Walsh, Hamilton Kuhn Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology (Medical School); Ph.D., Rockefeller, 1970. Molecular basis of biological catalysis, with focus on the structure and function of enzymes; biosynthesis and mechanism of action of antibiotics and bacterial siderophores.

Correspondence and Information

Harvard University
Graduate Admissions Office
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
12 Oxford Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Telephone: 617-496-3208
Email: admissions@chemistry.harvard.edu