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· About the Department
· Research Facilities
· Ph.D. Program Research Thesis M.S. Program Overview
· Admissions and T.A. Appointments
· English Language Requirements
· Transfer Students and M.S. Holders
· Frequently Asked Questions
The hallmark of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is a dedication to innovation in research and education. In the last ten years, the department has hired 10 of its 18 faculty members, completely renovated the Ph.D. and M.S. programs, and increased extramural research support more than ten fold. The department is currently composed of a dynamic group of 14 research active faculty, and approximately 35 graduate students and support staff. Faculty research interests span all areas of chemistry (analytical, biochemistry, inorganic, organic, and physical) with particular emphasis placed on multidisciplinary approaches to solving cutting-edge research problems in all areas of science. The research interests of the faculty who maintain active research programs are described on separate pages.
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is housed in the award-winning Richard King Mellon Hall designed by renowned architect Miles van der Rohe. In addition to the facilities contained in individual faculty research laboratories, departmental facilities include a Bruker 300 MHz multinuclear NMR spectrometer, Varian 300MHz and 500 MHz NMR spectrometers, two ICP/MS instruments, a Varian GC/MS instrument, a Waters/Micromass LC/MS instrument, SGI Itanium-2 supercomputers, as well as numerous other spectrophotometric and chromatographic instruments. Further, collaborative arrangements with other basic and applied science departments has lead to the joint operation of such facilities as the Sony Microscopy Laboratory featuring state-of-the-art transmission and scanning electron microscopes and associated computer imaging facilities; the x-ray crystallography facility, featuring a Rigaku AFC7R diffractometer, two powder diffractometers and associated computing equipment. Students have access to the departmental computer facilities, fully networked IBM PC-based systems, and computer-supported library facilities.
A recent evaluation of the graduate curriculum at Duquesne highlighted the critical need for innovative approaches to training research scientists. The stark reality is that although most Ph.D. students are schooled in the academic model of research, the vast majority of these students never enter academia. Rather, they pursue exciting alternate research careers in industry, national labs, consulting firms, and public policy centers. Realizing this trend, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry offers an innovative Ph.D. program designed to transition young scientists into active research professionals rapidly.
The centerpiece of the first year of study is the research rotation program. After evaluating the department's on-going research, the student selects up to two research groups for semester long rotations. The student also chooses a mentoring committee to monitor his/her progress. The objective of the rotation phase of the program is to expose students to the nature of research driven investigation. Consequently, there is limited required course work during the first year of the Ph.D. program.
The Department also recognizes that all incoming students do not necessarily share the same undergraduate research background. To provide the necessary expertise to complete the first year research rotations successfully, the department offers a wide variety of applied research short courses. Recent courses include applied separations, basic NMR, fundamentals of crystallography, and applied methods of computational chemistry. These courses are normally offered in July and August.
Students are required to give an oral defense at the end of each rotation. With the successful completion of the first year of rotation, students are considered for advancement to Ph.D. candidacy if they wish (including M.S. students). Successful applicants must have demonstrated qualities necessary for attainment of the Ph.D.: perseverance, integrity, intellect, and dedication. All students then select a research project and develop an individualized curriculum in conjunction with their advisor and dissertation committee.
In the following years students will actively engage in dissertation research, begin taking fundamental and special topic courses recommended by their committee, and write and defend an original research proposal.
The Department maintains an active program of research meetings and seminars in which frontier developments in all areas of chemistry are presented and discussed by the faculty, students and invited lecturers from other institutions. This program exposes students to new ideas in chemistry by providing contact with scientists from various areas of the United States and other countries.
The Master's degree in Chemistry or Biochemistry can be applied to in two forms: the Research Thesis M.S. and the Non-Thesis M.S. The former emphasizes research over coursework, while the latter is based entirely on advanced coursework. The Thesis M.S. is offered primarily for students seeking a fairly rapid transition from their undergraduate experience to a research laboratory, usually in the chemical and biochemical industries. The Non-Thesis M.S. is offered to students wishing to expand greatly their theoretical and practical understanding of the sciences of chemistry and biochemistry.
The Ph.D. and M.S. programs are separate and independent of each other. A student must apply to the program of interest and be accepted into it. Acceptance in one program does not grant admission into the other. For example, a Ph.D. student does not automatically enter the M.S. program at will. The student must apply to the M.S. program and be approved. See the M.S. program for details.
For the Research Thesis M.S., the student completes two research rotations, takes classes decided on by the mentoring committee, and completes and defends a thesis. The timeline in the first year is therefore nearly the same as for the Ph.D. program, although M.S. students will generally have a much more carefully planned curriculum for the first two years. The Non-Thesis M. S. student takes 30 credits of graduate classes and gives one public seminar.
The department offers research training fellowships to Ph.D. students. Stipends and tuition are provided by individual research grants and Duquesne University teaching assistantships. In 2007-2008, students receive tuition plus an income of $20,000. Exceptional candidates may be awarded Bayer Fellowships at $20,500 their first two years. MS students are not eligible to receive any stipend or tuition assistance. If an M.S. student wishes to apply for advancement to Ph.D. candidacy, they will be considered for a teaching assistantship, but none are guaranteed. Scholarships may be available on a competitive basis.
Graduate Teaching Assistantship reappointment for each semester is contingent on positive research evaluation by the Thesis Committee, satisfactory fulfillment of teaching responsibilities, and satisfactory academic evaluation by the Office of the Dean in conjunction with the Director of Departmental Affairs. TA appointments are not automatically extended for more than four years. Students who do not complete a dissertation by the 8th semester may be considered for additional departmental support on a semester by semester basis, provided they have made significant progress towards their degree. No graduate students will receive departmental funding after the 5th year.
See Graduate Policies. In addition, because communication is so vital to being a successful scientist, for international students, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry requires a minimum score of 45 on the Speak Test administered by ESL in order to receive any advanced degree.
The high degree of flexibility of the Ph.D. program makes it very easy to transfer into our program or to continue your advanced studies if you already have an M.S. degree in Chemistry, Biochemistry, or related science. In most cases, one Research Rotation serves as a transitional element, and the Rotation Committee will decide on advancement to candidacy or additional rotation thereafter. Students may transfer up to 6 credits from another accredited institution (B grade or better); however, for the Ph.D. program, as there is no minimum coursework requirement, most students elect not to actually transfer the credits. The committees take former coursework into account when deciding on future coursework, so students lose nothing in the transfer process.
For most students already holding an M.S. degree in Chemistry or Biochemistry from a U.S. institution, the experience at Duquesne will consist entirely of research, leading to a Ph.D. in only 2-3 years.
Your class schedule is determined by your committee and you. What you take depends primarily on what your background is and what your main area of research is. It is important that you have a certain breadth of exposure, as well as depth in your research area. We currently teach three, one year-long courses: Reaction Mechanism and Structure, Quantum Structure and Dynamics, and Thermodynamics and Kinetics. Most students matriculating with a B.S. degree will take two or three of these courses. We also have a number of Special Topics courses, and there are courses at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University that may be appropriate, especially for gaining more profound depth in, for example, spectroscopy. Your class schedule is determined by your committee and you.
We currently teach Applied Courses, or skills courses, in statistics, NMR spectroscopy, microwave digestion, computational chemistry, and chromatography. Most students take three or four of these courses, as needed. You don’t have to take any of them, but the course contents were chosen to be the most useful to the most students. Again, this depends mainly on your background and level of experience. However, even if you have experience in, say, NMR spectroscopy, taking this course will allow you to learn how to get the most out of our particular instruments. What classes do I have to take?
You and your committee. In practical terms, most students start taking skills courses shortly after matriculation, so the Director of Departmental Affairs and the Admissions Committee Director, who are your de facto committee until you choose your first rotation director, will help you decide on which courses to take.
No. However, you are encouraged to work with more than one professor. In some cases, this will be natural if you are working on a collaborative project. In some cases, you may be trying to decide what kind of research you wish to do during your time in graduate school. In some cases, you may just want exposure to different disciplines and experimental techniques. You are expected to challenge yourself. In any case, if you stay with the same professor in the second semester, you are essentially picking your research director for your whole time…which is fine if you are certain that you want to work for that person.
Yes. Students have done rotations in Biological Sciences, for example, to pick up additional exposure to certain techniques. This is most effective if the student is working on a collaborative project. You cannot do your Ph.D. research for a faculty member outside of Chemistry and Biochemistry, however, so make sure that you discuss this with your eventual advisor.
Start with choosing your PhD advisor. Pick a group that has projects that interest you and has people in it that you can work with. Your prospective advisor also has to agree to have you work in his lab. We do not assign students to labs, but faculty are also not obligated to accept a student in his or her group. Every advisor has his or her own idea on how to fill up the committee. Most of the time, you or your advisor will pick other faculty who are familiar enough with that general area of research, or with particularly important techniques (analytical, synthetic, or computational, for example) that they can provide expert advice on your projects.
No. If you have done both rotations with the same faculty member, it is more difficult, but not impossible, to pick someone else entirely.
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