CHEM

This scheduled weekly interdisciplinary seminar provides the context to reflect on concrete experiences at an off-campus internship site and to link these experiences to academic study relating to the political, psychological, social, economic and intellectual forces that shape our views on work and its meaning. The aim is to integrate study in the liberal arts with issues and themes surrounding the pursuit of a creative, productive, and satisfying professional life. Students receive 1.0 unit of academic credit for the academic work that augments their concurrent internship fieldwork.

Independent study is available to those students who wish to continue their learning in an area after completing the regularly offered courses in that area.

Independent study is available to those students who wish to continue their learning in an area after completing the regularly offered courses in that area.

This course offers the student the opportunity to hear guest speakers discuss a variety of subjects within the general discipline of chemistry.

Theoretical and/or experimental research done in an area of chemistry over two semesters (~150 research hours). The topic depends upon the student's interest: however, it should be compatible with a faculty member's area of expertise. Students must write and orally defend a thesis. In special cases, a student may register for 0.5 unit for each of two semesters.

This course explores how modern chemical and biochemical strategies are used to interrogate and manipulate biological systems. The course will focus on selected, recent developments in the field as described in review articles and the primary literature.

This course explores the chemistry of various metabolic processes including glycolysis, citric acid cycle, oxidative phosphorylation, electron transport, fatty acid and amino acid synthesis and degradation, DNA synthesis, RNA synthesis and processing, and protein synthesis and processing. Particular attention is paid to the experimental approaches that have provided information about these processes.

This course applies concepts of physical chemistry to the study of biological processes. The topics covered include protein and nucleic structure and stability, thermodynamics of protein folding, enzyme kinetics and instrumental techniques such x-ray crystallography, NMR and mass spectrometry.

This course uses computer-based molecular modeling as a tool for understanding and predicting the structure, stability, and reactivity of organic compounds. Practical topics, such as selecting appropriate calculational methods, visualizing and analyzing results of calculations, and interpreting results in terms of the chemical behavior of the system under study are emphasized. The theoretical principles underlying various computational methods are discussed.

This course presents both theoretical and descriptive concepts related to inorganic chemical compounds including periodic relationships, structure and bonding, molecular symmetry, acid base chemistry, electrochemistry, and inorganic reaction mechanisms. Laboratory experiments illustrate common synthetic and characterization processes for inorganic compounds. These concepts and techniques are brought together through the topics of coordination chemistry, organometallic chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry, and solid-state chemistry.