About

The Department of Chemistry at Tufts University provides a supportive environment for undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars to learn fundamentals, explore exciting topics in modern chemistry, and to participate in cutting-edge research.

Chemistry classes were taught at Tufts starting in 1865, but it was not until 1892 that the Department of Chemistry was officially established under its first chair, Prof. Arthur Michael. Under his guidance, Tufts quickly achieved international prominence in research. The first doctorate in chemistry at Tufts was awarded in 1904 to Arthur Beckett Lamb who went on to serve as editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society from 1918-1949. Since those early years, the Department of Chemistry has garnered world-wide recognition as a leader in teaching and research. Today, we continue to offer students the facilities and research opportunities of a top-tier research institution, while retaining the student-centered training focus of a smaller institution. Research in the department encompasses the traditional disciplines of organic, inorganic, physical, and analytical chemistry, but most research projects reflect the interdisciplinary nature of modern chemical research.

We offer Chemistry, ACS-Certified Chemistry, and Biochemistry majors for Tufts undergraduates, as well as a Fifth-Year Master’s Degree Program: BS/MS in Chemistry. At the graduate level, we offer MS and PhD programs in Chemistry, Chemistry-Biotechnology, and Chemical Physics.

Department Chair

Yu-Shan Lin

Professor and Department Chair of Chemistry

Theoretical and Computational Biophysical Chemistry. The YSL Group aims to elucidate the structures and functions of biomolecules by integrating the power of advanced computations with the elegance of chemical theory. Our focus is to develop and apply computational methodology to significant biological problems that are difficult to address experimentally. Two major research projects in the YSL Group are (1) to understand and design cyclic peptides with desired conformations to modulate protein–protein interactions and (2) to elucidate the structural and functional roles of post-translational modifications and non-natural amino acids on protein folding.