Research is the heart of the Department of Chemistry at Drexel University, where students, faculty, and staff forge an interdisciplinary collaboration dedicated to advancing the forefront of the field. Faculty conduct pioneering work in research areas that include: analytical, atmospheric, inorganic, materials, organic, physical, theoretical and computational chemistry, as well as concentrations in chemical biology and chemical education. Research activity across the department has earned the support of federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in addition to funding from many private foundations.
The department’s community of scholars —faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate, and undergraduate students— is large enough to offer a range of stimulating experiences within the field of chemistry yet small enough to provide each student with individual attention to fit their interests.
Faculty Research Areas
Faculty in the Department of Chemistry are at the forefront of leading-edge research spanning a wide variety of chemistry subfields.
Analytical Chemistry
| Faculty Member |
Contact |
Specialization |
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Professor Emeritus
Disque Hall 212
jfoley@drexel.edu
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Analytical Chemistry;
Separation Science;
Ultra-High Performance Liquid Chromatography;
Tandem Column Liquid Chromatography;
Two-Dimensional Liquid Chromatography;
Capillary and Microchip Electrophoresis;
Electrokinetic Chromatography
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Professor of Chemistry; Department Head; Affiliated faculty member of College of Engineering, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Disque Hall 305
hj56@drexel.edu
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Organic and Polymer Chemistry; Drug discovery; Biofilm; Phosphorus-based nanomaterials; Plasma chemistry and it’s medical applications |
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Associate Professor; Chair, Faculty Senate
Stratton Hall 415
kevin.owens@drexel.edu
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analytical chemistry; mass spectrometry; analytical method development; time-of-flight mass spectrometry; analytical instrument development; matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization; imaging mass spectrometry; micro-organism identification by mass spectrometry; chemometrics; correlation analysis
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Atmospheric Chemistry
| Faculty Member |
Contact |
Specialization |
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Associate Professor; Chair, Chemistry Graduate Program Committee
Disque Hall, room 507
Ezra.Wood@drexel.edu
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Atmospheric Chemistry; Air Pollution; Climate Change; Analytical Instrumentation
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Chemical Biology
| Faculty Member |
Contact |
Specialization |
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Associate Professor
Disque Hall 506
ya426@drexel.edu
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Chemical Biology; Cysteine Proteomics; Redox Signaling; Glutathione; and Post-translational Modifications; Medicinal Chemistry. |
Chemical Education
| Faculty Member |
Contact |
Specialization |
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Associate Professor; Associate Department Head
509 Disque Hall
daniel.king@drexel.edu
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Active learning pedagogy; Assessment of technology use; Guided inquiry (i.e., POGIL) activities; Incorporation of real-world context
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Inorganic Chemistry
| Faculty Member |
Contact |
Specialization |
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Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Stratton 416A
brumberg@drexel.edu
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Inorganic materials chemistry;
Semiconductor nanoparticles;
Ultrafast spectroscopy;
Crystallization, self-assembly, and phase transitions;
Optoelectronic properties |
Materials Chemistry
| Faculty Member |
Contact |
Specialization |
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Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Stratton 416A
brumberg@drexel.edu
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Inorganic materials chemistry;
Semiconductor nanoparticles;
Ultrafast spectroscopy;
Crystallization, self-assembly, and phase transitions;
Optoelectronic properties |
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Professor of Chemistry; Department Head; Affiliated faculty member of College of Engineering, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Disque Hall 305
hj56@drexel.edu
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Organic and Polymer Chemistry; Drug discovery; Biofilm; Phosphorus-based nanomaterials; Plasma chemistry and it’s medical applications |
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Associate Professor; Chemistry Graduate Advisor
Disque Hall 222
kws24@drexel.edu
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Theoretical chemistry; computational chemistry; materials research; mechanically interlocked macromolecular complexes (MIMAs); surface modeling. |
Organic Chemistry
| Faculty Member |
Contact |
Specialization |
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Professor
Stratton 410
fraser.f.fleming@drexel.edu
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Research is focused on rapidly constructing biologically relevant scaffolds as potential pharmaceutical leads. Two complementary research areas comprise most of the research effort: the use of metalated nitriles as potent nucleophiles for hindered bond construction, and the use of metalated isocyanides as precursors to peptide mimics. The research has been primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. |
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Professor of Chemistry; Department Head; Affiliated faculty member of College of Engineering, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Disque Hall 305
hj56@drexel.edu
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Organic and Polymer Chemistry; Drug discovery; Biofilm; Phosphorus-based nanomaterials; Plasma chemistry and it’s medical applications |
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Professor Emeritus
Disque Hall 503
wadepa@drexel.edu
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Nitro; cycloaddition; rearrangement; isomerization; nitration |
Physical Chemistry
| Faculty Member |
Contact |
Specialization |
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Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Stratton 416A
brumberg@drexel.edu
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Inorganic materials chemistry;
Semiconductor nanoparticles;
Ultrafast spectroscopy;
Crystallization, self-assembly, and phase transitions;
Optoelectronic properties |
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Assistant Professor
Disque 508
ml3784@drexel.edu
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Neurodegenerative protein aggregation;
Membrane associated amyloid fibrils;
Molecular structures, dynamics, and intermolecular interactions of biological macro molecules;
Solid-state NMR and Cryo-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM) |
Theoretical and Computational Chemistry
| Faculty Member |
Contact |
Specialization |
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Associate Professor; Chemistry Graduate Advisor
Disque Hall 222
kws24@drexel.edu
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Theoretical chemistry; computational chemistry; materials research; mechanically interlocked macromolecular complexes (MIMAs); surface modeling. |
Labs and Facilities
The Department of Chemistry has a variety of instruments that are available for use on a fee basis. Researchers interested in using instrumentation pay a training fee before using the services on a time basis, or in some cases can opt for a pay-per-sample arrangement. In addition to the labs and facilities listed below, the chemistry department maintains a small desktop molecular modeling facility running Hypercube’s Hyperchem and the Schrodinger Suite —Maestro, Bioluminate, etc. Full-time technical support includes two departmental electronic instrumentation specialists, a laboratory manager and two laboratory technicians.
Instrumentation Specialist
Please email any questions you may have to our instrumentation specialist Joshua Williams, PhD, jrw437@drexel.edu. You may also call 215.895.1980, or stop by Stratton Hall, room 406.
The chemistry department maintains a professionally staffed mass spectrometry facility available to all members of the university community.
Operating instrumentation:
- Bruker Autoflex III matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer (MALDI TOFMS NSF CRIF-MU #0840273)
- Thermo-Electron LTQ-FT 7T Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) spectrometer with both atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) and electrospray ionization (ESI) sources interfaced with a Thermo-Finnigan Surveyor high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system
- Micromass AutoSpec M high-resolution magnetic sector MS with fast atom bombardment, desorption chemical ionization and electron impact capability
- Sciex API3000 triple quadrupole mass spectrometer also equipped with both ESI and APCI sources interfaced to a Perkin-Elmer series 200 HPLC system
Samples may be submitted for analysis or users may be trained in operation of the instruments for use in long-term projects.
The chemistry department maintains a professionally staffed Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Center equipped with 300MHz and 500MHz Varian Unity Inova NMR systems; both instruments have multi-nuclear capability. The probe on the 500 MHz instrument is a cryogenically cooled triple resonance model (1H {13C/15N}) suitable for protein analysis.
Visit Drexel’s NMR Center
The Analytical Instrumentation Laboratory in the Department of Chemistry is equipped with the usual array of open-access chemical analysis instrumentation which includes:
Mass Spectrometry
- Bruker Autoflex III matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer (MALDI TOFMS NSF CRIF-MU #0840273)
- Thermo-Electron LTQ-FT 7T Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) spectrometer with both atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) and electrospray ionization (ESI) source interfaced with a Thermo-Finnigan Surveyor high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system
- Micromass AutoSpec M high-resolution magnetic sector Mass Spectrometer with fast atom bombardment, desorption chemical ionization and electron impact capability
- Shimadzu 2030 Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) capable of Liquid, Headspace, and Solid Phase Micro Extraction (SPME)
- Shimadzu 8050 triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (MS) with atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI), electrospray ionization (ESI), and Dual Ionization (DUIS) sources interfaced to a Shimadzu Prominence high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system with additional Diode Array Detector (DAD).
Chromatography (Liquid and Gas)
- Shimadzu 2030 Gas Chromatography with both Flame Ionization (FID) and Barrier Discharge Ionization (BID) detectors
- PerkinElmer Clarus 500 GC with both Flame Ionization (FID) and thermal conductivity (TCD) detectors
- Shimadzu iSeries high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system with diode array (DAD) and refractive index (RI) detectors
- Shimadzu Nexera ultra high-performance liquid chromatography system (UHPLC) with diode array (DAD), and evaporative light scattering (ELSD) detectors. This system is additionally interfaced to a Shimadzu Fraction Collector.
- SciEX PAC/E MDQ Plus Capillary Electrophoresis with single wavelength UV/Vis, and Diode Array detectors (DAD)
Magnetic Resonance Spectrometer
- 500MHz Varian Unity Inova NMR with multi-nuclear capability, a cryogenically cooled triple resonance model (1H {13C/15N}) probe suitable for protein analysis.
- 400 MHz Varian Mercury (2 RF channels) with double resonance auto-switchable broadband probe (1H/19F/13C/31P, 1H/19F{15N-31P})
- 90MHz Anasazi Eft-90 MHz NMR
- Varian E-12 X-band CW Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectrometer (with 77 K cryogenic capability)
Absorbance Spectroscopy
- Thermo NanoDrop One UV/Vis Spectrometer
- Shimadzu UV1900 UV/Vis Spectrometer with temp. control
- Shimadzu UV2600 UV/Vis Spectrometer with temp. control
- Shimadzu UV3600Plus NIR/UV/Vis Spectrometer with temp. control and can additionally be interfaced with a 150mm integrating sphere
- Jasco J-1500 Spectropolarimeter (Circular Dichroism) with Temp. control
- Shimadzu AA-2000 atomic absorption spectrometer capable of Flame, Graphite Furnace, or Hydride Vapor Generator
Infra-Red Spectroscopy
- Shimadzu Tracer-100 FTIR spectrometer can be interfaced with Transmission, ATR, HATR, or Diffuse/Specular Reflectance accessories
- Shimadzu Tracer-100 interfaced with the AIM-9000 IR Microscope capable of measurements in the Near, Mid and Far IR region of the spectrum
- PerkinElmer Spectrum One FTIR can be interfaced with ATR, Transmission, or Diffuse/Specular Reflectance accessories
- PerkinElmer Spectrum 2 FTIR can be interfaced with ATR, Transmission accessories
Fluorescence Spectroscopy
- Shimadzu RF-6000 Fluorescence Spectrometer can be interfaced with sample temp. controller
- ISS Chronos DFD Digital Frequency and Time Domain Spectrometer capable of SteadyState and picosecond Lifetime measurements, can also be interfaced with sample temp. controller
- PerkinElmer LS-55 Luminescence Spectrometer
- Kin-Tek SF-2004 Stopped Flow Fluorescence Spectrometer, also interfaced with diode array absorbance detector
- Promega Qubit 4 Fluorimeter (470nm and 635nm LED excitation sources – for biological and protein applications)
Raman Spectroscopy
- Renishaw RM-2000 Vis Raman Spectrometer
- Renishaw RM-2000 UV Raman Spectrometer (Currently NOT operational)
Microscopy
- Veeco diNanoScope 3D Multimode Atomic Force Microscope
- Leica Inverted Fluorescence Microscope
- Zeiss Epi-Fluorescence Microscope
- Camaag TLC Plate Imager
Physical Measurements
- Shimadzu SALD 7500Nano Particle Size Analyzer equipped with a wet measurement, small volume and high concentration accessories
- Shimadzu TGA-50 Thermogravimetric analysis
- Brookfield DV-II+ Viscometer and Rheometer can be equipped with spindle, or cone/plate attachments
- Horiba LB-550 Dynamic Light Scattering
Electrochemistry
- BASi Epsilon Eclipse (Potentiostat | Galvanostat | Biopotentiostat) with Rotating Disk Electrode and C-3 cell stand accessories
- BASi PalmSens4 portable (Potentiostat | Galvanostat | Impedence Analyzer)
Synthesis
- CEM MARS6 Microwave Digestion System
- UCT Positive Pressure Manifold for Solid Phase Extraction (SPE)
- BioTage TurboVap LP Evaporator
Electronics Tools
- National Instruments ELVIS III with Complete Labview system
- Quanser Analog Electronics Lab interface Board for the ELVIS system
- Keysight InfiniiVision X-series Oscilloscope 4 channel 100MHz, with 20MHz arbitrary waveform generator, and 3-digit multimeter
Maryanoff Fellowship: First-Year Summer Research Program
Thanks to the generous support of two Drexel alumni, selected students are able to participate in a chemistry research program during the first summer after their freshman year.
Bruce and Cynthia Maryanoff met while Bruce was a PhD student and Cynthia was an undergraduate, both working under the late Robert Hutchins, PhD, a Drexel professor and department head of chemistry. Hutchins’ mentorship would inspire the Maryanoffs to give back to Drexel to provide other undergraduate students the opportunity to conduct research to further achieve their educational and career goals.