School of Chemistry, UNSW

The School of Chemistry at UNSW is one of the leading centres of research in Chemistry in Australia. In 2006 the School moved into a new state-of-the-art building, with outstanding facilities for research and teaching. As a result of this move the school is now co-located with the UNSW Analytical Centre, which houses all of the major equipment at UNSW for chemical research and provides research facilities which are at the forefront internationally. These new facilities allow us to continue our tradition of excellence in research and provide our students and researchers with the best environment for pursuing exciting and innovative research strategies.

Research in the School is focussed into three broad areas: Molecular Devices, Biological and Chemical Catalysis, and Bioactive Molecules. These three areas reflect a modern approach to chemical research as a multidisciplinary endeavour that overlaps with biology, physics, medicine, and material science. All three research areas aim to benefit Australia not only through expanding fundamental scientific understanding, but also by the translation of high quality science into tangible technology applicable to medical diagnostics, therapeutics, and low energy, environmentally-friendly chemical processes.

Research foci in the School

Our school has particularly strong collaborative links locally, nationally, and internationally. The School of Chemistry is located within the lower campus science precinct of UNSW, close to the Schools of Materials Science and Physics. Other UNSW schools involved in biochemistry and medicine are a few minutes walk away and medical research institutes such as the Children's Cancer Institute Australia (CCIA) are located less than a kilometre from campus. The University of NSW is located near the heart of Sydney close to other universities such as the University of Technology and the University of Sydney, allowing easy collaboration with other chemists. The recently commissioned OPAL reactor is on the southern outskirts of Sydney and the School of Chemistry has a joint appointment (Dr John Stride) with the Bragg Institute, a centre of excellence for neutron scattering. We also regularly welcome international visitors, on both short term and long term visits. With the recent opening of the Australian Synchrotron the range of world-class facilities easily available to researchers in Chemistry at UNSW is virtually complete.

Of course, all of our research is made possible by an outstanding cohort of graduate and honours students along with internationally competitive post-doctoral researchers. We welcome applications from within Australia as well as from overseas for our honours and Ph.D. programs. With the wide range of research being undertaken in the School, applicants should have no difficulty in finding a project of interest. The School offers scholarships at both honours and Ph.D. level for excellent applicants.

Detailed descriptions of the research interests and publications of staff members are available on their web pages or from the School of Chemistry Research Book (PDF format, 5 MB).

Research in the School of Chemistry