On May 14, 2024, 38 undergraduate students presented research posters at the first annual SMACS and UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry Undergraduate Poster Session, hosted jointly by the Student Members of the American Chemical Society (SMACS) and the chemistry department. After welcoming remarks given by SMACS board members in the Dongwon Yoo Seminar & Conference Hall, […]

In April, the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry launched Fran Zone’s Chemistry of Compelling Communication Series. The inspiration for the series was sparked in 2019 when department chair, Professor Catherine Clarke (the first female to chair the department), invited Dr. Michael Varney (UCLA grad, 1980) to deliver the commencement speech that year. Dr. Varney […]

Dr. Kevin E. Rivera Cruz, a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Hannah Shafaat’s group, has received the prestigious University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship (UC-PPFP) and the National Science Foundation Math and Physical Sciences ASCEND Postdoctoral Fellowship (NSF-MPS-ASCEND) for the 2024-2025 academic year.  The UC-PPFP is a one-year fellowship that covers the annual salary for postdoctoral […]

The Van der Waals Thin Film Team, co-led by Professor Xiangfeng Duan, Professor Yu Huang (Materials Science and Engineering), and Professor Jun Chen (Bioengineering), receives the RSC 2024 Materials Chemistry Horizon Prize for the development of van der Waals thin films with high electronic performance, mechanical stretchability, and permeability for highly flexible, which offer a […]

The Electrical Transport Spectroscopy Team, co-led by Professor Xiangfeng Duan, Professor Anastassia Alexandrova, and Professor Yu Huang (Engineering), receives the RSC 2024 Faraday Horizon Prize for the development of electron transport microscopy to experimentally determine the platinum-surface hydronium pKa and its role in pH-dependent hydrogen evolution reactions. The Faraday Horizon Prize recognizes significant and novel […]

Distinguished Professor Michael E. Jung, the Walter and Shirley Wang Chair in Medicinal Drug Discovery and scientific co-founder of Pelage Pharmaceuticals, has helped the company raise $16.75 million to advance groundbreaking hair loss treatments. Jung’s key contribution to the company involves his work on designing potent patentable molecules that specifically target the reactivation of dormant […]

Chemical biology graduate student AJ Addae (Paul S. Weiss group) has won Northeastern University’s first place Women Who Empower Women Innovator Award, and second place in Powering Diverse and Inclusive Communities of Belonging Award. Launched in 2021, the Women Who Empower Innovator Awards recognize “bold, creative changemakers in Northeastern’s vast entrepreneurial ecosystem” and provide them […]

The Molecular Strainers Team at UCLA, led by Professor Neil Garg and Professor Ken Houk, receives the RSC 2024 Organic Chemistry Horizon Prize: Perkin Prize in Physical Organic Chemistry for the creative advancement of strained intermediates involving cumulated cyclic dienes and trienes.  Horizon Prizes are given by the Royal Society of Chemistry for achievements “at […]