Contact info

Dept. Chemistry & Biochemistry

18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, California
91330-8262

Phone: (818) 677-3381
Fax: (818) 677-4068
E-mail: chemistry@csun.edu

Office: 2102 Eucalyptus Hall

Hours: Mon-Fri 8:00am-5:00pm

Contact the Department Webmaster

 



 

Welcome to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, California State University Northridge website. At CSUN we are committed to providing quality undergraduate and Master's-level graduate education. Our department offers ACS-certified Bachelor of Science degrees in Chemistry and Biochemistry and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry. In addition, we offer Master of Science degrees in Chemistry and Biochemistry.


We offer small classes, individualized attention and hands-on learning using state-of-the-art instrumentation. Our faculty strive to maintain excellence in classroom teaching and in their research. Three of our full-time faculty have received the university-wide Outstanding Teaching Award, two have been recipients of the annual campus Outstanding Professor Award, and two have received the CSUN Jerome Richfield Scholar award for research. Our faculty are also committed to teaching through research; all of our graduate students and the vast majority of our undergraduates conduct research with faculty, often resulting in co-authored research publications.


The CSU Northridge Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has an impressive record of student success. After graduating, many of our students have gone on to attend prestigious graduate and professional schools, and now hold important positions in their respective fields. If you are interested in our graduate program, we will be happy to arrange a tour of our department and to discuss with you the availability of financial support for your studies.


Once again, thank you for visiting our program online. We invite you to browse our website and learn more about our department. Please feel free to call or email if you have any questions.

 

Tae Oh

Department Chair




Events


  • May 14-19: Final exams

  • May 22: The Commencement ceremonies for the College of Science and Mathematics will take place starting at 3:30 on the Manzanita Hall lawn.


News


  • May 11, 2012: Congratulations to Master's student Daniel Tabari (Schrodi lab) for successfully completing his thesis and presenting his thesis seminar in the Spring 2012 semester! He has earned an MS in Chemistry.

  • May 11, 2012: The Schrodi lab has published a new research paper, titled "Development of a Method for the Preparation of Ruthenium Indenylidene-Ether Olefin Metathesis Catalysts" in the May issue of the journal Molecules. The paper's co-authors are former graduate student Leonel Jimenez, undergrad Daniel Tolentino, and former undergrad Benjamin Gallon.

  • May 3, 2012: Congratulations to Dr. Vey for receiving a CSUPERB New Investigator award! The grant is worth $15,000 over the next 15 months.

  • May 2, 2012: Students in our department did well in the Sigma Xi Student Research Symposium which took place on April 27. Special congratulations go to graduate student Judy Salandanan (Minehan lab) and undergraduate student Daniel Tolentino (Schrodi lab), who placed first and second in their respective competitions.

  • March 14, 2012: Congratulations to Dr. Crowhurst for receiving an RUI grant from the NSF! The grant is worth $436,000 over three years.

  • March 12, 2012: The Melikyan research lab has published a new article, titled "Cobaltocene-Induced Low-Temperature Radical Coupling Reactions in a Cobalt-Alkyne Series" in the March 12th issue of Organometallics. The paper has two undergraduate and two graduate student co-authors (Bianca Rivas, Stepan Harutyunyan, Louis Carlson and Ruth Sepanian).

  • December 16, 2011: The Minehan research lab has published a new article, titled "Intramolecular [2 + 2] Cycloaddition Reactions of Alkynyl Ether Derived Ketenes. A Convenient Synthesis of Donor–Acceptor Cyclobutanes" in the December 16th issue of Organic Letters. The co-author on this paper is undergraduate student Vincent Tran.

  • November 1, 2011: Dr. Melikyan's recently published book "Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Antioxidants, Foods, Supplements, and Cosmetics" has been named as a finalist in the "Science" category of the USA "Best Books 2011" Awards nationwide competition, sponsored by the USA Book News. Congratulations Dr. Melikyan!

  • September 12, 2011: After a very long installation period, our 600 MHz NMR spectrometer is finally up and running! We now have a very high resolution state-of-the-art instrument at our disposal in the department!

  • August 29, 2011: The department wishes a very warm welcome to our newest cohort of graduate students! We hope your time with us is extremely productive and rewarding.

  • July 22, 2011: Congratulations to Dr. Melikyan for receiving a research grant from the NSF! The grant is worth $240,000 over three years.

  • July 7, 2011: Dr. Jessica Vey joined our department today as our newest biochemistry faculty member. She comes to us from a postdoctoral position at Vanderbilt University, where her research focused on structural characterization of G proteins by crystallography. Welcome, Dr. Vey!

  • July 1, 2011: Dr. Fischhaber has been granted tenure and has been promoted to the position of Associate Professor of Biochemistry. Congratulations, Dr. Fischhaber! Your hard work has paid off.

  • June 27, 2011: The 600 MHz NMR magnet has finally arrived! The transport up to the 3rd floor was harrowing, but it was successfully carried out. Installation will begin this week in Citrus Hall and will take ~1 month.

  • June 15, 2011: Dr. J. Michael Kaiser joined the department today as our new Instrumentation Manager. Welcome, Dr. Kaiser - we are thrilled that you are here!

  • June 15, 2011: Congratulations to Dr. Schrodi for receiving a SCORE SC3 grant from the NIH! The grant is worth $435,000 over four years.

  • June 6, 2011: Attention recent graduates and graduating students: if you are looking for a job that uses the skills you learned pursuing your Chemistry or Biochemistry degree, check out the AfterCollege jobs website, created for graduates of our department.

  • June 2, 2011: Congratulations to Dr. Hajdu, who has been granted SCORE SC3 funding from the NIH! The grant is worth $435,000 over four years.

  • June 2, 2011: Congratulations to Dr. Minehan for receiving a SCORE SC3 grant from the NIH! The grant is worth $435,000 over four years.

  • May 2011: Congratulations to Dr. Kelson for receiving a Research Development grant from CSUPERB! The grant is worth $15,000 over the next 15 months.

  • May 24, 2011: Undergraduate students Rana Akiel, Udara Ilandari Dewage, Marina Dykhne, McKinzie Garrison, Tram Le, Earl-Eugene Ringpis and Justin Waschk were given departmental awards for excellence in their academic endeavors at a reception held in their honor this afternoon. Former graduate student Sam Muhia was also given the graduate student teaching assistant award. Congratulations to all the awardees - the department is very proud of your accomplishments!

  • Spring 2011: Congratulations to our Master's student Naveen Battala (Crowhurst lab) for successfully completing his thesis and presenting his thesis seminar in the Spring 2011 semester! He has earned an MS in Biochemistry.

  • May 11, 2011: Congratulations to graduate student Heemal Dhanjee (Minehan lab) for winning first place for his oral presentation in the Physical and Mathematical Sciences category at the CSU Student Research competition, held in Fresno last weekend. Excellent work, Heemal!

  • May 2, 2011: Congratulations to graduate students Seong-Jin Moon (Minehan lab) and Danielle Lalimar Cortez (Fischhaber lab) for coming in first and second place, respectively, at the 13th Annual Student Research Symposium for the CSUN Chapter of Sigma Xi, which was held on Friday April 29th 2011! Both students did an excellent job giving their oral research presentations.

  • April 28, 2011: Our new 400 MHz NMR spectrometer has arrived! The Varian 400-MR system has been successfully delivered, and installation will start next week in its new home in Magnolia Hall.

  • March 23, 2011: Dr. Gagik Melikyan will be honored as the 2011 Jerome Richfield Scholar, and is presenting a seminar of his research, titled "Controlling Radicals: from Reaction Flask to Food and Body Preservation". The event begins at 4:00pm in the Library Presentation Room.

  • March 15, 2011: A manuscript from the Minehan research lab, titled "[3,3]-Sigmatropic Rearrangement / 5-Exo-Dig Cyclization Reactions of Benzyl Alkynyl Ethers: Synthesis of Substituted 2-Indanones and Indenes" has been accepted and will be published in a future issue of The Journal of Organic Chemistry. The co-author on this paper is graduate student Armen Tudjarian.

  • March: A manuscript from the Kelson research lab, entitled "Single-flask preparation of polyazatriaryl ligands by sequential borylation/Suzuki–Miyaura coupling" has been accepted and will be published in the April 11, 2011 issue of Tetrahedron Letters. The paper has one undergraduate and two graduate co-authors from the Kelson group (Eric MacIntosh, Bertoldo Avitia and Samuel Muhia).

  • March 1, 2011: Congratulations to Dr. Medh for receiving a SCORE SC3 grant from the NIH! The grant is worth over $400,000 for four years.

  • February 18, 2011: Congratulations to Heemal Dhanjee for receiving first place in the College of Science and Math oral presentation session at the 15th annual CSUN Student Research and Creative Works Symposium! Heemal is a postbaccalaureate student in the Minehan lab.

  • February, 2011: Grad student Joe Benoun (Fischhaber lab) was recently awarded a CSUPERB travel grant, worth $1000. He used it in a recent trip to Colorado to attend a Keystone conference on Genomic Instability and DNA Repair.

  • February 3, 2011: Students: are you interested in doing research with Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty? We now have a new website that posts research opportunities! The site shows you who is looking for students and what type of commitment each faculty member wants. It will take some of the legwork out of your search and allow you to focus on faculty who want to expand their labs! Go to this page and check it out.

    • ** For Departmental news pre-2011, please look at our Announcements page.