Overview
An Industry-based Doctoral Program is Available for Graduate Students Engaged in Chemical Research
Graduate students currently holding an M.S. degree or equivalent industry experience and who are actively engaged in chemical research or related professional arenas may wish to explore the possibility of an industry-based doctoral program. Successful candidates can arrange to have a major percentage of their job assignments devoted to a project that can serve as chemical dissertation research. This program is available to students with the approval of an immediate work supervisor and a member of Wesleyan's doctoral faculty. Upon approval and admission to the program, dissertation research may then proceed in the industrial lab setting.
Wesleyan's Graduate Student Association Focuses on Improving the Life of Graduate Students in Chemistry
Wesleyan currently has a total of 600 graduate students in the natural sciences, mathematics, ethnomusicology, and its unique Graduate Liberal Studies Program. Wesleyan strives to ensure that its graduate education experience is ever improving, and formed the Graduate Student Association (GSA) in order to help achieve this goal. The mission of the GSA is to communicate the needs and concerns of graduate students in chemistry and other programs to university administration in order to guarantee that those concerns are taken into account and that graduate student life is as problem-free as possible.
Graduate Students in the Department of Chemistry Enjoy a Weekly Seminar Featuring Outstanding Speakers
An excellent weekly seminar program affords an opportunity for students to hear and meet informally with a variety of outstanding speakers. In addition, the annual Peter A. Leermakers Symposium has brought eminent chemists from Europe, Asia, and throughout the United States to Wesleyan for a day of intensive examination of a particular subject.
Graduate-level chemistry students have access to both the speakers and their presentation materials, offering opportunities for professional and personal interaction. This exposure to thought leaders in chemical research and innovation is just one aspect of the growth opportunities and resources that the Wesleyan Department of Chemistry offers its students.
Biology and Chemistry Ph.D. Programs Value Productive Research and Innovative Research Skills
Graduate programs in the natural sciences at Wesleyan University emphasize research and the development of research skills. The focus of coursework in these programs is to develop knowledge and the ability to apply this knowledge creatively, rather than on passing examinations. The departments of chemistry and biology keep their Ph.D. programs within a certain size in order to ensure the possibility of close student-faculty interaction.
Research areas in the biology department include neurobiology and behavior, cell and development, and evolution and ecology. Within the chemistry department, individuals currently working in research fields have the option of pursing an industry-based Ph.D. program, wherein dissertation research is carried out in the laboratory workplace.
Wesleyan Offers a Challenging and Rewarding Interdisciplinary Program in Molecular Biophysics
The chemistry department participates in an interdisciplinary program of graduate study in molecular biophysics with the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and the Department of Physics. Students in the program are enrolled in one of the participating departments and fulfill canonical requirements of that department. In addition, they take advanced courses in molecular biophysics and pursue dissertation research with one of the faculty in the program.
The program provides a course of study and research that overlaps the disciplinary boundaries of chemistry, physics, biology, and molecular biology, and is designed for students with undergraduate background in any one of these areas. Focal points of the program are the weekly interdepartmental journal club in molecular biophysics and the annual research retreat.
Chemical Physics is One of Several Interdisciplinary Programs Available at Wesleyan
Beginning students in the chemistry or physics graduate programs may petition their department for admission to the interdisciplinary program in chemical physics. The philosophy underlying the program is that the solution to contemporary problems must increasingly be sought not within a single traditional specialty but from the application of different disciplines to particular problems. Students in the program will pursue a course of study and research that will familiarize them with both the physics and chemistry departments and in particular with those areas of overlapping interest that is broadly categorized as chemical physics.
