Chemistry Undergraduate Research

CHEM 4901/4902/4903 courses are offered to students who are engaged in chemical research under the sponsorship of a faculty mentor either on campus or off-campus. A research contract must be completed prior to obtaining a registration permit. Choose a mentor (see below) and research project, complete this form, and submit the signed form to Dr. Jermaine Johnson (jjhnsn26@memphis.edu or fax: 901-678-3447).

Undergraduates can engage in research before or after they have taken CHEM 490x, or even if these courses are not required for graduation. Some faculty members may have government, industry, and University funding to pay hourly wages or small stipends for undergraduate research. Students are also welcome to volunteer in the research lab when no funding is available. It still looks great on your résumé! Do not hesitate to ask a faculty member about available opportunities! Multiple opportunities will be available for students to present the results of their research on campus and at regional and national meetings.

The faculty listed here are among those available to mentor undergraduate research in chemistry. Follow the links for more details on research interests, and be sure to schedule meetings with one or more faculty in order to choose a project of mutual interest before completing the form referenced above. 

William Alexander (Physical Chemistry) - study of role of intermolecular forces in chemistry at surfaces, including applications in environmental contaminants, biomedical implants, and structure determination. More...

Daniel Baker (Analytical Biochemistry) - study of enzymes involved in lipid metabolism using high throughput screening, enzyme kinetics, site-directed mutagenesis, mass spectrometry, and computational methods. More...

Tim Brewster (Inorganic Chemistry) - design, synthesis, and characterization of transition metal complexes utilized as selective catalysts for organic transformations. More...

Ted Burkey (Organometallic Chemistry) - design, synthesis, and study of ultrafast molecular devices based on light-induced color changes in organometallic materials. More...

Nathan DeYonker (Inorganic/Theoretical Chemistry) - spectroscopy of astrochemicals, biochemistry and enzyme modeling, inorganic computational chemistry. More...

Tomoko Fujiwara (Polymer Chemistry) - synthesis and fabrication of organic polymers for biomedical applications such as drug delivery and implants, and membranes for energy devices. More...

Charles Garner (Organic Chemistry) - synthesis of new organic or metal-organic compounds to advance preparation or analysis methods. More...

Xiaohua Huang (Bioanalytical Chemistry) - development of novel nanomaterials and technologies for cancer detection and treatment. More...

Daniel Nascimento (Physical/Theoretical Chemistry) - development and application of quantum chemical methods and algorithms to model light-matter interactions in complex molecular systems. More...

Abby Parrill (Bioorganic Chemistry) - investigation of proteins as targets for therapeutic candidates using techniques ranging from computational modeling to protein design/expression/characterization. More...

Yongmei Wang (Biophysical Chemistry) – computational studies of macromolecules and nanoparticles, molecular modeling in nanomedicine, multiscale modeling in gene and drug delivery. More...

Xuan Zhao (Inorganic Chemistry) - design and synthesis of new catalysts for generating hydrogen from water and their development toward use in artificial photosynthesis. More...