University of Idaho
Chemistry
Moscow, Idaho 83844
Overview / Graduate Chemistry Video
The University of Idaho was created in 1889, a year before Idaho became a state. UI is a publicly supported, comprehensive land-grant institution with principal responsibility in Idaho for performing research and granting the Ph.D. degree. More than 750 faculty members participate in teaching and research. In addition to the accreditation of individual programs, the University is accredited by the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges.
The UI chemistry department has one of the strongest Ph.D.-granting programs in the Northwest and strives to continually upgrade the quality and visibility of the program. Students participate in internationally recognized research projects while benefiting from close interactions with faculty members. Interdisciplinary collaborations with faculty members in other departments and with scientists at nearby national laboratories enhance educational opportunities and access to instrumentation for research.
Due to its smaller size, the UI chemistry department attracts students who enjoy individual attention from faculty members and close collaboration with a community of dedicated researchers. There are typically about 40 chemistry graduate students on the campus, all of them full-time students supported by assistantships. Approximately half of these are international students, and one third are women. The UI chemistry department is especially interested in recruiting graduate students from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in chemistry.
Graduate studies at the UI chemistry department prepare students for a variety of careers. Some Ph.D. students pursue postdoctoral training upon completion of their graduate studies, while others immediately find permanent employment in academia, national laboratories, and industry. In addition to traditional careers in chemical manufacturing, graduates have found employment in biotechnology, environmental science, and computer science areas.
The Community
Moscow, located in the Idaho panhandle among the rolling hills of the Palouse, is an agricultural and recreational area and is the cultural center of the region. Local music and theater productions have received international acclaim. Skiing and lake and river sports are within an easy drive. Spokane is 88 miles north, and Seattle and Portland are each 6 hours west.
Programs of Study
The Department of Chemistry at the University of Idaho (UI) offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in analytical, inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry. Active research areas include synthetic and medicinal chemistry, photochemistry, organometallic chemistry, environmental chemistry, theoretical chemistry, molecular spectroscopy (especially Raman and infrared), fluorine chemistry, supercritical fluids, reaction dynamics, and chemical education. Entering graduate students take qualifying exams in all four areas of chemistry and can earn course credits for passing at the 50th percentile or higher. Ph.D. students go on to take a series of cumulative exams in their area of emphasis and are advanced to candidacy upon presentation of a brief research proposal, which forms the basis for the research leading to the Ph.D.
Graduate students in the UI chemistry department enjoy close collaboration and lively discussion with a small group of internationally recognized faculty members plus visiting faculty members and postdoctoral fellows. Every effort is made to support students financially through teaching and research assistantships and to facilitate the timely completion of degree requirements. Students have the choice to work on projects funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy, and other agencies. Upon completion of the Ph.D. or M.S. degree in chemistry, UI students go on to pursue careers in industry, government labs, and academia.
Facilities and Resources
The home to the department, Renfrew Hall, is named after and dedicated to the academic grandfather of this program, Malcolm Renfrew. Well known for his work at Dupont as part of the Teflon team, Malcom Renfrew continues at age 91 to be an active advisor, fund-raiser and inspiration for chemistry students and faculty.
At present, the UI chemistry department houses five Fourier-transform NMR spectrometers, including a 600-MHz, a 500-MHz, and three 300-MHz instruments. Other instrumentation includes a high-resolution GC/MS, a state-of-the-art X-ray diffractometer, three Raman spectrometers, a dozen FT-IR spectrometers, instrumentation for flowing afterglow experiments, several pulsed and continuous wave lasers, and a wide selection of instrumentation for experiments in electronic spectroscopy, light scattering, and electrochemistry. Facilities on campus afford opportunities for performing Auger spectrometry, electron microscopy, and atomic emission spectrometry. Researchers take advantage of excellent, fully networked departmental and campus computing facilities and have access to instrumentation at nearby national laboratories-Pacific Northwest National Labs in Richland, Washington, and Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Lab in Idaho Falls.
Expenses and Aid
Costs: Full-time graduate fees are $2,644 per semester for Idaho residents, with an additional fee of $4,696 per semester for nonresidents. Resident students enrolled part-time paid $254 per credit; nonresidents paid an additional $195 per credit for part-time work. Full-time fees are charged for 8 credits or more. Fees are subject to change.
Financial Aid: Graduate students are supported by teaching or research assistantships paying roughly $16,800 over ten months, and additional stipends ($1,900 minimum) are available for the summer months. Out-of-state tuition is waived for graduate students on teaching or research assistantships, and the department has a policy of covering 40 percent of student fees for all teaching assistants. Advisers of students supported on research assistantships typically pay their student fees in entirety (about $2,950 per semester) from grant funds. Financial aid is also available through the Federal Perkins Loan Program and work-study grants. The Student Financial Aid Office can provide information and applications.
Housing/Living Expenses: Graduate student housing is available through the University for $546 to $929 per month for apartments ranging in size from efficiencies to four-bedroom units. Potential graduate students are advised to reserve housing early. Off-campus housing lists are available at http://www.asui.uidaho.edu.
How to Apply / Application
Applications for admission are available at http://www.uidaho.edu/cogs or by writing to the address below. Completed applications must include the application fee ($40 for domestic or $60 for international), official copies of all transcripts, three letters of recommendation, and a brief statement of purpose addressing the applicant's interests and experience. International students whose native language is not English must also arrange to send official TOEFL and TSE scores, and graduates from institutions not accredited by the American Chemical Society (ACS) are required to submit GRE General Test scores.
Who to Contact
Chair, Graduate Admission Committee
Department of Chemistry
University of Idaho
Moscow, Idaho 83844-2343
Telephone: 208-885-6552
E-mail: mgreene@uidaho.edu
Faculty and Research
Analytical Chemistry
• Frank Cheng, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Penn State, 1988. Electrochemical remediation of halocarbons, antioxidant action.
• Total dechlorination of DDT by Pd/Mg particles under mild conditions. Chemosphere 43:195-8, 2001. With Engelmann and Doyle.
• Peter R. Griffiths, Professor; D.Phil., Oxford, 1967. Analytical vibrational spectroscopy; FT-IR, Raman; open-path atmospheric monitoring; surface-enhanced infrared spectroscopy; hyphenated techniques; chemometrics; spectroelectrochemistry.
• Surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy of p-nitrothiophenol on vapor-deposited platinum films. Appl. Spectrosc. 56:1275-80, 2002. With Bjerke.
• Ray von Wandruszka, Professor; Ph.D., Wyoming, 1977. Chemistry of humic substances, especially their configuration in aqueous solution; the use of humic materials in the decontamination of polluted water; the temperature-induced clouding of nonionic surfactants; stability of micellar and premicellar aggregates in solutions of nonionic and mixed surfactants.
• Dynamic light-scattering measurements of particle size development in aqueous humic materials. Fresenius J. Anal. Chem. 371:951-4, 2001. With Palmer.
• Chien M. Wai, Professor; Ph.D., California, Irvine, 1967. Supercritical fluid extraction, nanomaterials synthesis, and catalysis in supercritical carbon dioxide.
• Hydrogenation of olefins in supercritical CO®MD+SD¯2®MD-SD¯ catalyzed by palladium nanoparticles in a water-in-CO®MD+SD¯2®MD-SD¯ microemulsion. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 124:4540-1, 2002. With Ohde et al.
Inorganic Chemistry
• Thomas E. Bitterwolf, Professor; Ph.D., West Virginia, 1976. Solution of frozen matrix photochemistry directed toward understanding the nature and reactivity of photochemical intermediates of metal carbonyl and nitrosyl compounds, synthesis of homo- and hetero-bimetallic compounds as catalysts for water splitting.
• Organic matrix photochemical studies of rhenacarborane nitrosyl complexes. Evidence for linkage isomeric nitrosyl photointermediates. Organometallics 21:1856-60, 2002. With Weiss, Scallorn, and Jellis.
• Robert L. Kirchmeier, Professor; Ph.D., Idaho, 1975. Inorganic polymers, halogenated cations, new methods for the formation of carbon-fluorine bonds.
• Synthesis and characterization of per/polyfluorophenoxy derivatives of octachlorocyclotetraphosphazenes. J. Fluorine Chem. 112:307, 2001. With Rule and Selvaraj.
• Pamela J. Shapiro, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Caltech, 1991. Synthetic and mechanistic organometallic chemistry; metallocence complexes of the main group and early transition metals; catalysis-directed ligand design, particularly for olefin polymerization catalysis.
• Calcium-mediated fulvene couplings: A survey of 6-aryl and 6-alkyl fulvenes for their rac selectivity in the synthesis of ansa-calcocenes. Organometallics 21:182-91, 2002. With Sinnema et al.
• Jean'ne M. Shreeve, Professor; Ph.D., Washington (Seattle), 1961. Nucleophilic and electrophilic fluorinations and perfluoroalkylations; high-energy compounds; biologically interesting compounds containing fluorine; hypervalent compounds of sulfur and phosphorus; fire extinguishants, poly nitrogen compounds, ionic liquids.
• Tetrameric fluorophosphazene, (NPF2)4, planar or puckered? J. Am. Chem. Soc. 123:10299-303, 2001. With Elias et al.
Organic Chemistry
• Leszek Czuchajowski, Professor; Ph.D., Krakow Technical (Poland), 1957. Synthesis of phosphorous(V)porphyrins diaxially substituted with nucleobases, nucleotides, amino acids, and peptides; synthesis of porphyrinyl-polynucleosides; studies of their interaction with DNA.
• Synthesis and biomedical application of porphyrinyl nucleosides, nucleotides, and oligonucleotides. Trends Heterocyclic Chem. 6:57, 1999. With Li.
• Gustavo E. Davico, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Cordoba (Argentina), 1992. Gas-phase ion chemistry; chemistry, structure, and reactivity of singly and multiply charged ions.
• Negative-ion photoelectron spectroscopy, gas-phase acidity, and thermochemistry of the peroxyl radicals CH3OO and CH3CH2OO. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 123:9585, 2001. With Blanksby et al.
• Nicholas R. Natale, Professor; Ph.D., Drexel, 1979. Medicinal chemistry, synthetic methods, heterocyclic and lanthanide chemistry.
• Unique structure activity relationship of 4-isoxazolyl-1,4-dihydropyridines. J. Med. Chem. 46:87-96, 2003. With Zamponi et al.
• Richard V. Williams, Professor; Ph.D., Cambridge, 1978. Physical organic chemistry; molecules of fundamental importance-synthesis, experiment and theory, novel aromatics, pyramidal olefins, and neutral homoaromatics; (homo)aromaticity, pericyclic reactions, and mechanistic investigations; new synthetic methods mediated by silicon and sulfur.
• Homoaromaticity. Chem. Rev. 101:1185-204, 2001.
Physical Chemistry
• W. Daniel Edwards, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Missouri-Rolla, 1976. Computational quantum mechanics, electronic excited state properties, excited state gradients, transition metal spectroscopy, metal-porphyrin complexes, object-oriented programming methods, virtual physical chemistry labs.
• Investigation of the solvatochromic electronic transitions of [Ru(NH3)4bipyridine]2+. Chem. Phys. Lett. 312:369-75, 1999. With Streiff and McHale.
• T. Rick Fletcher, Associate Professor; Ph.D., California, Davis, 1986. Gas phase reaction dynamics, controlling chemical reactivity using laser excitation, bimolecular and unimolecular reactivity, organic photochemistry, nanochemistry.
• The role of translationally excited species in atmospheric reactions. Phys. Chem. Earth C 26:487-93, 2001. With Wojcik.
• Jeanne L. McHale, Professor; Ph.D, Utah, 1979. Raman and resonance Raman spectroscopy, studies of liquids and intermolecular interactions, spectroscopic studies of intramolecular and interfacial electron transfer, chromophore aggregation, and solvent dynamics.