150th Celebration

Berkeley Chemistry: 1868 to the Present

Chemistry has been part of Berkeley since the University's charter was signed on March 23,1868. The chemist Robert Fisher was one of the first ten faculty to be hired.

In memoriam: Willard B. Rising

January 14, 2023
by John Maxwell Stillman, Bernard Moses, and Edmond O'Neill

Undated portrait Willard B. Rising. Collection Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.Willard B. Rising

Summary of Prof. Rising's career from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography

Willard Bradley Rising, chemist, b. 26 sept 1839, Meckleenburg, New York. D. 9 Feb 1910, Berkeley, CA. Lived at 2203 Bancroft, Berkeley, CA (now the edge of the University on Bancroft.) Wife Frances;...

In Memoriam: Richard Andersen

September 10, 2019
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release
The field of inorganic chemistry has lost one of its most passionate practitioners; Professor Richard Andersen passed away in Oakland, California, on June 16, 2019, at the age of 76.

David Chandler, pillar of physical chemistry, dies at the age of 72

April 26, 2017
Courtesy of the Chandler family

Prof. Philip Geissler and the late Prof. David Chandler

Chandler (r.) with fellow chemistry professor (and former student) Phillip Geissler at the opening of the Pitzer Center expansion in Gilman Hall, November 2016. Photo by Michael Barnes.

David Chandler, pillar of the physical chemistry scientific community and Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of...

John Maxson Stillman

July 25, 2021
F. O. Koenig | Isis

Excerpt from biography by F.O. Koenig in Isis, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Autumn, 1942), pp. 142-146

John Maxsom Stillman

Photo of Stillman from Stanford University archive collection. Approx date 1897.

Born the son of a...

Ignacio Tinoco Jr.

March 25, 2020

Ignacio Jr. Tinoco

By Kerry Grens

Ignacio (Nacho) Tinoco, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, who pioneered methods to understand the structures of RNA, died last month (November 15). He was 85.

Tinoco...

Bruce H. Mahan, 1930 - 1982

February 18, 2021
Yuan T. Lee, Rollie J. Myers, Kenneth Sauer, and Ignacio Tinoco Jr.

Bruce Mahan posing on a tree log

Bruce Mahan was born in New Britain, Connecticut, in 1930. He attended Harvard University both as an undergraduate and as a graduate Ph.D. student. After completing his bachelor's degree in the chemistry department, he decided to carry out his doctoral studies with George Kistiakowsky in physical chemistry. Kistiakowsky had trained in gas phase photochemistry with Bodenstein in Berlin,...

Lloyd Noel Ferguson: research chemist and educator

June 18, 2020
by Marge d'Wylde | College of Chemistry

A scientist with laboratory equipment

Lloyd Noel Ferguson (1936-1986), circa 1984 (Photo: Cal State LA)

Dr. Lloyd Noel Ferguson (B.S., '40; Ph.D. '43, Chem) was a brilliant chemist, a dedicated teacher and mentor, and an ardent supporter of young Black people entering the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering. Dr. Ferguson regularly faced racism as he navigated his way...

Meet our faculty: Alexis T. Bell

August 10, 2020
Roger Eardley-Pryor | UC Berkeley Oral History Project
Alexis T. Bell: A Career in Catalysis and University Administration at UC Berkeley

Black and white portrait of a man in front of blackboard.

Alexis T. Bell in UC Berkeley classroom, circa 1990.

Alexis T. Bell is the Dow Professor of Sustainable Chemistry in the Department of...

William Dulaney Gwinn

March 12, 2020

William Dulaney Gwinn

By Robert E. Connick, Rollie J. Myers, and Richard J. Saykally

William Dulaney Gwinn died from a stroke on May 5, 1997. He came to the University as a graduate student in 1939 to begin a long and...