As early as freshman year, chemistry and biochemistry majors are encouraged to become involved in research projects, closely supervised by faculty in the department. Stipends are available to fund students’ work on a broad range of research projects during the summer and academic year. If you would like to conduct research with one of our faculty members, click here for important information and deadlines.
The results of these projects are often presented by students at the American Chemical Society National Meeting, the Western New York American Chemical Society Undergraduate Research Symposium, and other major conferences. In addition, students are often co-authors (with faculty) of research publications in major international science journals.
Research opportunities in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry are described in this document and include:
Analytical & Inorganic Chemistry: Dr. Szczepankiewicz’s group is interested in developing rugged photo activated catalysts capable of reducing small stable molecules such as CO2.
Analytical & Environmental Chemistry: Dr. Schaber’s group is interested in developing analytical tools to identify pollutants in water and soil.
Biochemistry: Dr. Bashir’s group is interested in the discovery of novel enzymes, particularly cellulases from microorganisms, that degrade cellulosic biomass, a renewable resource, for production of biofuels or a variety of chemicals.
Inorganic Chemistry: Dr. Kozik’s group studies a group of transition metal complexes called polyoxometallates and their potential applications in medicine and in environmental chemistry.
Organic Chemistry: Dr. Gregg’s group is interested in the reactions of carbenes useful for preparing novel types of chemical products. This includes screening the reactivity of starting materials, investigating chiral metal catalysts used to prepare optically active products, and modelling reaction mechanisms using computer-based quantum mechanical tools.
Physical Chemistry: Dr. Sheridan’s group uses visible laser and millimeter/microwave spectroscopic techniques, as well as computational chemistry, to study fundamental structure and bonding properties of small molecules in the gas phase.