In a recent Nature Catalysis paper, Professor Hannah Shafaat and collaborators at Ohio State University and at Berkeley and Brookhaven national labs report the first structural and spectroscopic characterization of a new class of metalloenzyme related to, but distinct from, nitrogenase enzymes. Their discoveries about the enzyme methylthio-alkane reductase provide new insight into renewable biofuel […]

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. […]

Professor Paul S. Weiss has been appointed to the inaugural editorial advisory board of RSC Applied Interfaces, a new journal from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). In June 2025, the RSC launched two new journals—RSC Applied Interfaces and RSC Applied Polymers —focused on innovative applied research across the interfacial and polymer science spectrum. These are the RSC’s […]

The UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry has appointed Professor Kalli Kappel as the Linda and Fred Wudl Term Chair, effective retroactively to July 1, 2025. Established in 2005, the Linda and Fred Wudl Term Chair supports exceptional faculty in UCLA’s Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry. By enabling the department to appoint either a junior […]

Ph.D. candidates Mai Abdusamad, Katarina Cohen, Teagan Dean, Jadyn Malone, and Jack Scully receive UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) 2025 Fellowship Awards to support their cancer research projects. The UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) Fellowship Program provides research funding to postdoctoral scholars/fellows, residents, and graduate Students engaged in all areas of cancer research, including […]

Professor Justin Caram has been selected by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as a member of the 2025 cohort of Experimental Physics Investigators. He joins 22 other mid-career researchers from around the country, each receiving a five-year, $1.3 million grant to further their research goals. The initiative is designed to support new and imaginative […]

Omar M. Yaghi, a former professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCLA who is currently the James and Neeltje Tretter Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Recognized as the inventor of reticular chemistry—a scientific field focused on linking molecular building blocks into extended crystalline frameworks—Yaghi conducted […]

Materials chemistry graduate student Kodi Thurber (Tolbert group) has been awarded the 2025 Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) Scientific Development Award for his development of a novel battery cell that enables the use of synchrotron X-rays to visualize structure and volume changes in energy dense battery materials in 3D, with nanoscale resolution. Thurber received the […]