Stanford University Department of Chemistry

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 exce...