In the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University, we seek to explore and to expand the frontiers of modern chemistry. Chemistry is critical to understand the world around us; a distinguishing feature of chemistry as a discipline is its focus on creating new forms of matter, investigating the structure and dynamics of atomic and molecular systems, and developing new experimental tools and theoretical approaches to understand and control atomic and molecular behavior. There are few areas of developing scientific knowledge and technology that do not rely heavily on chemistry; those that do include medicine, human health, biotechnology, materials science, biology, applied physics, microscopy, geology, and environmental science, among others. We thus approach the problems in these fields from the mechanistic perspectives of making molecules, investigating molecules, and controlling molecules, through a wide range of programs and initiatives which fulfill our dual roles of excellence in research and teaching. With deep expertise in synthetic organic chemistry, biological chemistry, computational chemistry, inorganic chemistry, polymer chemistry, physical chemistry, and biophysics in our department, we attract talented students and postdoctoral researchers from around the world. Our distinguished faculty contains many members of the National Academy of Sciences and many international award winners, and our undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers are also the recipients of numerous honors. From another point of view, our department sits at an intellectual and physical location at the nexus between basic sciences, applied sciences/engineering, and medicine at Stanford, which enables a variety of multidisciplinary projects and interactions.
