News

Congratulations to Dr. Tao Huan for being named a 2024 Rising Star in Measurement Science by the American Chemical Society!

ACS Measurement Science Au recognizes early-career scientists from across the globe who are making significant contributions to the field of measurement science. Dr. Huan's article "Closing the...

Dr. Ido Levin will join the Department of Chemistry on Aug 1, 2025, jointly appointed with the Department of Mathematics.

Dr. Levin is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Keller Lab at the University of Washington. He attended The Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he completed his BSc, MSc and PhD. He is the recipient of a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar Award in recognition of his academic and research achievements...

Congratulations to Associate Professor Zachary Hudson for receiving the 2024 Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring!

The Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring recognizes outstanding mentorship of numerous graduate students over many years. A champion of his students, Dr. Hudson has been consistently recognized as an outstanding graduate student mentor. His unwavering support and infectious enthusiasm for science...

In the Chemistry Department at UBC’s Point Grey campus, Brian Ditchburn, the Chemistry departments dedicated glassblower, works tirelessly on delicate glassware. His hands move with precision, customizing items and repairing about 90% of the glassware brought into his lab, with a skilled touch that had been honed over 25 years. “Brian is a key member of the department, and a rare one; few chemistry departments across the country have full-time glassblowers,” says...

Chemistry graduate students smash their study stress away in “destructive therapy” sessions.

In-house glassblower Brian Ditchburn invites chemistry graduate students to his workshop to release tension by crushing unsalvageable glass lab equipment.

“Whether they’re behind or exams or their chemistry is not going as well as they want, it gives them a chance to release that stress by breaking something that looks expensive but is not,” said Ditchburn, who has an open door policy...

Congratulations to Raksha Kandel (PhD student in the MacLachlan group) for her communication as a VIP (Very Important Paper) in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.! 

For this work, Raksha constructed a rotaxane where a platinum-containing macrocycle is threaded onto a molecular axle. When the platinum centre is oxidized, the rotation dynamics of the molecule are affected. When the molecule is oxidized to platinum(III), in...

Readily available thermoelectric generators operating under modest temperature differences can power CO2 conversion, according to a proof-of-concept study by chemists at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

The findings open up the intriguing possibility that the temperature differentials encountered in an array of environments—from a typical geothermal installation on Earth to the cold, desolate surface of Mars—could power the conversion of CO2 into a range of useful fuels and...

Imagine a world where you don’t need to constantly sanitize your hands after touching surfaces, like during the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s exactly the problem Postdoctoral Fellow Saeed Ataie (Schafer group), set out to solve.

Polyethylene, the world’s most commonly used plastic, covers everything from tables to door handles. In the study, Ataie and researches found a way to improve this plastic by adding special...

An asteroid has helped researchers discover the largest molecule ever detected by radioastronomy, and the third-largest identified in space.

Dr. Ilsa Cooke, assistant professor in the UBC department of chemistry, has co-authored the discovery which was published today in Science. The discovery, which is co-senior authored by Dr....