College of Chemistry

Alumnus John E. Adams, (Ph.D. Chem, '79) has been re-elected chair of the board of directors of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society. Adams will begin his second one-year term on Jan. 1, 2019.

The periodic table is chemistry’s holy text. Not only does it list all of the tools at chemists’ disposal, but its mere shape – where these elements fall into specific rows and columns – has made profound predictions about new elements and their properties that later came true. But few chemists on Earth have a closer relationship with the document than Dawn Shaughnessy, whose team is partially responsible for adding six new elements to table’s ranks.

It is with great sadness we report the passing of Jack Kirsch, who served as a Professor of Molecular & Cell Biology and Chemistry from 1964 to 2006 and as a Professor of the Graduate School in retirement. Jack was an esteemed scientist and a pillar of the campus community who will be greatly missed by all who knew and worked with him.

College Factual, a website offering advice to prospective college students and their families, has released its 2019 national and state rankings for Best Chemistry Programs for Veterans. UC Berkeley’s Chemistry program was ranked #12 out of 435 for veteran friendliness of all colleges and universities reviewed by College Factual. This puts UC Berkeley in the top 5% of all schools in the nation when it comes to offering a quality education to veterans studying Chemistry.