On Saturday, June 13, 2026, 66 of our students received Ph.D. degrees, 24 students received Master of Applied Chemical Sciences degrees, six Departmental Scholars received Master of Science degrees, and 292 undergraduate students received bachelor’s degrees. Congratulations to the Class of 2026! At the ceremony, Department Chair Professor Alex Spokoyny presented the 2026 UCLA Chemistry […]

A team of researchers led by Professor Richard Kaner has been awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s 2026 Materials Chemistry Horizon Prize in recognition of a collaboration between the Kaner group at UCLA and SILQ Technologies,Inc. that translated pioneering zwitterionic polymer surface-coating technology into FDA-cleared medical devices designed to help prevent infections in patients. The […]

Distinguished Professor Neil Garg, who holds the Kenneth N. Trueblood Endowed Chair in Chemistry and Biochemistry, has won the Royal Society of Chemistry’s 2026 Centenary Prize for “challenging long-standing paradigms in organic chemistry through the creative generation and use of strained intermediates in synthesis, and for excellence in communication.” Established in 1947, the Centenary Prize […]

Congratulations to Professor Chong Liu on his promotion to full professor, effective July 1, 2026. Since joining UCLA in 2017, Liu has established an internationally recognized research program focused on electrochemical interfaces for energy, environmental, and biological applications. One research focus of the research group is the materials-biology interface, which studies the charge-transfer and incurred […]

The Department is delighted to welcome Professor Giulia Palermo, a world-renowned computational biophysicist recognized for her pioneering computational studies of genome editing systems. She will join the UCLA faculty as a Full Professor on July 1, 2026. “We are excited to welcome Giulia Palermo to UCLA,” said Professor Miguel García-Garibay, UCLA’s Dean of Physical Sciences. […]

We are sad to report that Dr. Richard “Rich” Cross, a former postdoctoral fellow in Professor Paul Boyer’s laboratory and a longtime supporter of the department, passed away on February 7, 2026, at the age of 82. A Distinguished Professor Emeritus at SUNY Upstate Medical University, Cross was internationally recognized for his contributions to the […]

Distinguished Professor Sarah Tolbert, the Charles and Carolyn Knobler Endowed Term Chair, has been selected for one of UCLA’s highest teaching honors, the 2026 Distinguished Teaching Award for Senate Faculty for Community-Engaged Teaching, in recognition of her more than 25 years of dedicated leadership of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) Nanoscience Education Program and her […]

Department Chair Professor Alexander Spokoyny is one of 18 U.S. academic researchers chosen for the US Defense Science Study Group (DSSG) class of 2027-28. The two-year program introduces outstanding scientists and engineers to the challenges facing national security and encourages them to apply their expertise to address these issues. A UCLA faculty member since 2014, […]