Welcome to the Department of Chemistry
Chemistry, the central science, is an integral part of modern life and forms the basis for advances in nearly all areas of science and technology. Students and faculty in Chemistry at the University of Maine work together to answer questions related to major societal issues: energy, the environment, modern materials, and health and medicine. We invite you to explore our undergraduate and graduate programs and to learn more about our research. If you have questions or would like to make arrangements for a tour of our department, please contact Dr. Alice Bruce, Chair, 152/271 Aubert Hall, 581-1168/ 581-1182, abruce@maine.edu
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Department News
Alessia Battigelli – After starting her independent career at the University of Oslo in Norway, Alessia joins UMaine as an assistant professor of Chemistry, where her research activity is focused on biomimetic self-assembled nanomaterials with applications in drug delivery and tissue engineering. Prior to UMaine, she obtained her PhD from the University of Trieste and the University of Strasbourg in 2012. She then joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she investigated self-assembled peptoid-based nanomaterials. In 2016, she moved to Brown University to develop new polymeric hydrogels for stem-cell therapy. In 2018, she received the ACS PMSE Future Faculty Scholars award.
Tomas Marangoni – Dr. Marangoni joins UMaine as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and FIRST, where his research activity is focused on developing new organic materials for sensing and electronic applications. After receiving his PhD from the University of Trieste in 2012, he moved to the University of California-Berkeley where he worked on the synthesis of atomtically precise Graphene Nanoribbons (GNRs). In 2016, he joined DuPont E&I developing high-performance electronic materials for commercial applications. In 2020 he received the Excellence in Science Award from DuPont E&I for his outstanding contributions in the field.
Research and Publication Highlights
Recent PhD graduate Duwage Charitha Perera and Emeritus Professor Jay Rasaiah published a paper entitled ‘Exchange Functional and Basis Sets for Density Functional Theory Studies of Water Splittings on Selected ZnO Nanoclusters” in the journal ACSOmega (https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.1c05666). The image is from the Table of Contents (TOC) of the journal issue in which the paper appeared
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Atik Faysal, recent PhD graduate, and others from the Gramlich research group, published a paper in the Journal of Polymer Chemistry, “Pathway to fully-renewable biobased Polyesters derived from HMF and phenols.” The image below is from his abstract.
Seminar Series
Chemistry Department
Graduate Research Seminar Series
Robin Hurst
Brichacek Research Group
March 28th @ 11:00 a.m.