Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Greetings from the Chair

Whether you are a prospective Providence College student, a current student, an alum, or a guest, I hope the information that you find on our web site will give you a good sense of the current goings on in Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Our department is a vibrant, active one, with enthusiastic, energetic faculty who enjoy working closely with undergraduate students, both in and out of the classroom.  Our class sizes are small – typically about 30 students in sections of General Chemistry or Organic Chemistry and less than 20 students in the accompanying lab sections.  Most upper level Chemistry and Biochemistry classes have enrollments less than 15 students.  All our lab courses are taught by faculty members since Providence College does not have a graduate program in chemistry or biochemistry, and consequently no graduate teaching assistants.

Our department offers three programs of study; the B.S. in Chemistry, the B.S. in Biochemistry, and the B.A. in Chemistry.  Our B.S in Chemistry program has been certified by the American Chemical Society since 1958 and is directed towards students committed to a career in chemistry.  Our B.S. in Biochemistry program was started in 1999 and was certified in 2006.  The Biochemistry major has been quite popular; about 50% of our majors choose this program of study which is an excellent preparation of graduate school, professional schools in the health science and employment.  The B.A in Chemistry program is also a good preparation for the professional schools in the health sciences but is well suited for careers in secondary education, business, intellectual property law, and other fields where the knowledge of chemistry is valuable.

Our teaching labs are spacious and well-equipped with analytical instrumentation.  In the past three years we have purchased new instrumentation for fluorescence spectroscopy, UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy and fast kinetics, Raman spectroscopy and electroanalytical chemistry.  In the spring of 2009 we are installing a 400 MHz Bruker Avance NMR spectrometer inside the Organic Chemistry teaching laboratory.  Again, because we do not have a graduate program, all our analytical instrumentation is exclusively for students to use in their laboratory classes and research.

Research is an important activity in which students can work closely with a faculty member and enrich their educational experience. In April of 2008 Providence College rededicated Hickey Hall following an extensive remodeling of the building at a cost in excess of $4.2 million.  The laboratories in Hickey Hall are for the undergraduate research activities of students working with faculty members in the departments of Biology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Engineering-Physics-Systems.  The department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has two large, flexible, multi-user labs; one for chemical synthesis and the other for chemical measurements.  Research opportunities are available both during the academic year and during the summer months.

Each May we graduate about 10-15 chemistry and biochemistry majors.  These talented young adults leave Providence College well-prepared for their future careers having successfully completed a challenging program of studies while working together in a supportive environment.  In the past few years our alumni have entered chemistry and biochemistry graduate programs at prestigious schools such as Cal-Berkeley, Columbia, Northwestern, Princeton, UPenn, and Yale.  Other alumni have entered medical school at Albert Einstein, Brown, Creighton, Pittsburg, Tulane, UConn, USUHS, and Wake Forrest, dental school at Tufts, and pharmacy school at the MCPHS.  Still others found employment at the Merck, Electric Boat, Hanna Instruments, and Organogenesis.     

If there is any information that you need about our department that is not found on our web pages, please contact any member of the faculty or call 401-865-2379 for more information. We will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you for visiting our pages,

J.J. Breen ‘81
Associate Professor and Chair