Biological Chemistry Faculty

Core Faculty

These faculty have primary appointments in the Department of Chemistry.

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Bren, Kara L.

she/her/hers

  • Richard S. Eisenberg Professor in Chemistry in the School of Arts & Sciences
    Professor of Chemistry
  • Chair, Department of Chemistry

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Interests: Bioinorganic and biophysical chemistry

Headshot of Professor Jiang.

Jiang, Yishu

she/her/hers

  • Incoming Assistant Professor in July 2024

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Interests: Biophysical chemistry; Catalysis; Ultrafast spectroscopy and cell imaging

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McCamant, David W.

he/him/his

  • Associate Professor of Chemistry

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Interests: Ultrafast spectroscopy of molecular dynamics in photochemistry; mechanisms of vibrational relaxation

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Nilsson, Bradley L.

he/him/his

  • Professor of Chemistry
  • Director, Materials Science Program

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Interests: Peptide self-assembly; amyloid peptides; amyloid-inspired materials; bioorganic chemistry; supramolecular chemistry

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Partridge, Benjamin E.

he/him/his

  • Assistant Professor of Chemistry

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Interests: Supramolecular chemistry; Bioinspired materials; Self-assembly in water; Protein engineering

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Cluster Affiliated Faculty

Faculty in the clusters have primary appointments in other departments but can mentor chemistry graduate students.

Sina Ghaemmaghami

Ghaemmaghami, Sina

  • Mercer Brugler Distinguished Teaching Professor
    George Y. and Catherine H. Wu Professor in Chemistry
    Professor of Biology
  • Director, AS&E Undergraduate Research

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Interests: Protein folding and degradation; Neurodegenerative diseases and aging; Prion biology; Proteomics

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Grossfield, Alan

he/him/his

  • Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics

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Interests: Investigating membranes and membrane proteins via computer simulation

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Mathews, David H.

  • Lynne E. Maquat Distinguished Professor
    Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics

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Interests: Computational biology of RNA, including structure prediction, molecular dynamics, and genomics

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Miller, Benjamin L.

  • Professor of Dermatology
    Professor of Biomedical Engineering
    Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics
    Professor of the Institute for Optics

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Interests: Developing new strategies for the sequence-selective recognition of RNA, and using the optical properties of nanostructured materials for the production of novel biosensors

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Research Professors

Research professors do not accept graduate students, but have active research programs within the department.

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Ebetino, Frank Hal

  • Professor of Chemistry, Research

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Interests: Medicinal chemistry and drug design, including bisphosphonates and bone targeted drugs for arthritis and cancer, receptor agonists/antagonists, and epigenetic enzyme inhibitors

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Adjunct Faculty

Adjunct faculty do not accept new graduate students and now have appointments elsewhere, although some of their students are still based at the University of Rochester.

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Fasan, Rudi

he/him/his

  • Andrew S. Kende Professor in Synthetic Organic Chemistry
    Professor of Chemistry

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Interests: Organic chemistry and chemoenzymatic synthesis; asymmetric biocatalysis; protein engineering; bioorganic chemistry and chemical biology

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Emeritus Faculty

Emeritus faculty no longer teach courses or graduate students, but many are still active contributors to the intellectual life of the department, serving as co-advisors, mentors, and running research programs.

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Krugh, Thomas R.

  • Professor Emeritus of Chemistry

Interests: Biophysical chemistry; structural analysis of biomolecules, energy minimization and molecular dynamics calculations

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Turner, Douglas H.

  • Professor Emeritus of Chemistry

Interests: Biophysical chemistry: nucleic acid structure and function, RNA folding, therapeutics, and prediction of structure from sequence

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