The School of Chemistry is a school of the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

, in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. In the 2008

Research Assessment Exercise The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) was an exercise undertaken approximately every five years on behalf of the four UK higher education funding councils ( HEFCE, SHEFC, HEFCW, DELNI) to evaluate the quality of research undertaken by British ...

(RAE) the school was ranked sixth in the UK.

History and alumni

The teaching of Chemistry at Edinburgh began in 1713 when James Crawford was appointed to the 'Chair of Physik and Chymistry' (where 'physik' = natural science/art of medicine). The department has occupied many sites in its history, from a house at the top of Robertson's Close in the city centre, to purpose-built facilities in the central campus at Old College through to its current location at

King's Buildings The King's Buildings (colloquially known as just King's or KB) is a campus of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Located in the suburb of Blackford, Edinburgh, Blackford, the site contains most of the schools within the University of Edin ...

. Each move has brought with it expansions in size and status until the department occupied the position it does now, as one of the world's leading Chemistry

teaching Teaching is the practice implemented by a ''teacher'' aimed at transmitting skills (knowledge, know-how, and interpersonal skills) to a learner, a student, or any other audience in the of an educational institution. Teaching is closely related ...

and

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

establishments. The department also hosts the oldest student-run Chemistry society in the world which was created in 1785 and is still active today. Today the department carries on the traditions of Chemistry at Edinburgh both in teaching and research. The collaborative research School formed with

St Andrews University The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, following the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, t ...

Chemistry department to form EaStCHEM has strengthened research in Scotland in the chemical sciences. Alumni and former staff include: James_Dewar

* Thomas Anderson, discoverer of

pyridine Pyridine is a basic (chemistry), basic heterocyclic compound, heterocyclic organic compound with the chemical formula . It is structurally related to benzene, with one methine group replaced by a nitrogen atom . It is a highly flammable, weak ...

Joseph Black Joseph Black (16 April 1728 – 6 December 1799) was a British physicist and chemist, known for his discoveries of magnesium, latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide. He was Professor of Anatomy and Chemistry at the University of Glasgow ...

, discoverer of

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

latent heat Latent heat (also known as latent energy or heat of transformation) is energy released or absorbed, by a body or a thermodynamic system, during a constant-temperature process—usually a first-order phase transition, like melting or condensation. ...

and

specific heat In thermodynamics, the specific heat capacity (symbol ) of a substance is the amount of heat that must be added to one unit of mass of the substance in order to cause an increase of one unit in temperature. It is also referred to as massic heat ...

* Perdita Barran, Professor in the School of Chemistry, University of Manchester * Neil Campbell, chemist and amateur athlete * Archibald Scott Couper, proposed an early theory of chemical structure and bonding * John Davy, discoverer of

phosgene Phosgene is an organic chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic, colorless gas; in low concentrations, its musty odor resembles that of freshly cut hay or grass. It can be thought of chemically as the double acyl chloride analog of ...

* James Dewar, inventor of the Dewar flask * Narayan Hosmane, cancer researcher, BNCT * David Leigh, Forbes Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh from 2001 to 2012, Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology winner in 2007 * Christina Miller, synthesized phosphorus trioxide * Dai Rees, CEO of the Medical Research Council from 1987 to 1996 * Prafulla Chandra Roy, distinguished chemist and founder of Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals * Daniel Rutherford, discovered

nitrogen Nitrogen is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a Nonmetal (chemistry), nonmetal and the lightest member of pnictogen, group 15 of the periodic table, often called the Pnictogen, pnictogens. ...

while he was studying at the University of Edinburgh in 1772 * James Fraser Stoddart, supramolecular chemist * Lesley Yellowlees CBE, first female president of the

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the ...

, Vice-President of the University of Edinburgh

Organisation

The school has a research staff of approximately 120 individuals, and an academic staff of over 40. Current annual enrollment includes around 200 research students, and 450 taught

postgraduate Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor' ...

and

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

students. EaStCHEM is the joint research school in chemistry between the Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews. It has eight research groupings: Chemical Biology; Synthesis; Materials; Structural Chemistry; Chemical Physics; Biophysical Chemistry; Inorganic Chemistry; and Catalysis. In the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008, the most in-depth analysis of research outputs for seven years, EaStCHEM, submitted 73% of all world leading outputs (4*) in Scotland and 12% of world leading outputs in all of the UK. From 31 submissions EastChem was the largest in UK Chemistry. EaStCHEM comes joint 4th in the

Grade Point Average Grading in education is the application of standardized Measurement, measurements to evaluate different levels of student achievement in a course. Grades can be expressed as letters (usually A to F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), percentage ...

(GPA) metric, and first when staff numbers are factored in (the power ranking).

Research themes

The School has four major research themes as part of EaStCHEM: The Chemistry/Biology Interface area is broad, with particular strengths in the areas of

protein structure Protein structure is the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in an amino acid-chain molecule. Proteins are polymers specifically polypeptides formed from sequences of amino acids, which are the monomers of the polymer. A single amino acid ...

and function, mechanistic

enzymology An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different mol ...

proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital macromolecules of all living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replicatio ...

, biologically targeted synthesis, the application of high throughput and combinatorial approaches and

biophysical chemistry Biophysical chemistry is a physical science that uses the concepts of physics and physical chemistry for the study of biological systems. The most common feature of the research in this subject is to seek an explanation of the various phenomena ...

, which focuses on the development and application of

physicochemical Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mecha ...

techniques to

biological system A biological system is a complex Biological network inference, network which connects several biologically relevant entities. Biological organization spans several scales and are determined based different structures depending on what the system is ...

s. Chemical Physics/Physical Chemistry is the fundamental study of molecular properties and processes. Areas of expertise include probing

molecular structure Molecular geometry is the three-dimensional arrangement of the atoms that constitute a molecule. It includes the general shape of the molecule as well as bond lengths, bond angles, torsional angles and any other geometrical parameters that det ...

in the

gas phase In the physical sciences, a phase is a region of material that is chemically uniform, physically distinct, and (often) mechanically separable. In a system consisting of ice and water in a glass jar, the ice cubes are one phase, the water is a ...

, clusters and nanoparticles, the development and application of physicochemical techniques such as

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is used ...

to molecular systems and the EaStCHEM surface science group, who study complex molecules on surfaces, probing the structure property-relationships employed in

heterogeneous catalysis Heterogeneous catalysis is catalysis where the Phase (matter), phase of catalysts differs from that of the reagents or product (chemistry), products. The process contrasts with homogeneous catalysis where the reagents, products and catalyst exis ...

. A major feature is In Silico Scotland, a world class research computing facility. Molecular Synthesis encompasses the synthesis and characterisation at ambient and extreme conditions of organic and inorganic compounds, including those with application in homogeneous catalysis,

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

supramolecular chemistry Supramolecular chemistry refers to the branch of chemistry concerning Chemical species, chemical systems composed of a integer, discrete number of molecules. The strength of the forces responsible for spatial organization of the system range from w ...

drug discovery In the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which new candidate medications are discovered. Historically, drugs were discovered by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or ...

and ligand design. The development of innovative synthetic and characterisation methodologies (particularly in structural chemistry) is a key feature. The Materials Chemistry group is one of the largest materials chemistry groups in the UK. Areas of strength include the design, synthesis and characterisation of strongly correlated electronic materials, battery and

fuel cell A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most bat ...

materials and devices, porous solids, materials at extreme pressures and temperatures, polymer microarray technologies and technique development for materials and

nanomaterials Nanomaterials describe, in principle, chemical substances or materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science ...

analysis.

Senior academic staff

senior academic staff (full

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

s) in the school include: * Paul Attfield * * Eleanor Campbell * * Alison Hulme * * Guy Lloyd-Jones * Neil McKeown * *Carole A. Morrison *Jason Love *Paul N. Barlow *Scott L. Cockroft *Michael Ingleson *Simon Parsons *Neil Robertson *Dusan Uhrin *Andy Mount

References

External links