The Chemistry Department of the University of Hawaii at Manoa has 15 permanent (tenured and tenure-track) faculty members, 10-15 postdoctoral research fellows, and 13 technical and secretarial staff members. The graduate program has 30-40 students, of which half are in the Ph.D. program, with the remainder working towards their M.S. Typically, there are 70 undergraduates pursuing their bachelor's degrees at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Undergraduate majors have the option of pursuing a B.A. or B.S. in Chemistry.
The faculty of the Department of Chemistry have research interests in organic, inorganic, physical, and analytical chemistry. The main areas of research in the Organic Chemistry division are bioorganic and natural products chemistry. Particular emphasis is found in two areas, the isolation and identification of antitumor compounds derived from terrestrial and marine organisms and the total synthesis of anticancer agents. The Inorganic Chemistry division focuses on the syntheses and characterization of new materials, such as those for hydrogen storage and catalysis. Physical Chemistry at UH-Manoa includes experimental and theoretical approaches, such as NMR spectroscopy of proteins, crystallographic methods for zeolite chemistry, reaction dynamics in astrochemistry, and computational studies of the interactions between surfaces and small molecules. Finally, a smaller Analytical Chemistry division is complemented by the use of a wide range of analytical methods in many organic, inorganic, and physical chemistry research projects.
The graduate faculty participate in a number of collaborative efforts. Organic chemistry faculty interested in natural products chemistry are part of an integrated drug discovery program with colleagues at the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii. Faculty are involved in other intra- and interdepartmental research programs, such as the hydrogen program of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI), and the Cell and Molecular Biology Program.
Faculty members maintain research programs and participate in the graduate education program. Most of the faculty also teach undergraduate courses and direct undergraduate research projects. Individual faculty pages give more details of the research programs in the Department. Extramural support for faculty research comes from several federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Army and the Department of Energy. The current award total from federal programs is $6.1 million. Additional support comes from industrial sources and private foundations.
The research and teaching laboratories of the Chemistry Department are located in Bilger Hall and Bilger Addition. The Department’s instrumentation includes 3 NMR spectrometers: (1) a Varian Mercury Plus 300 for routine solution NMR (H-1 and broadband); (2) a Varian Unity Inova 400 wide-bore, used primarily for solid-state NMR; and, (3) a Varian Unity Inova 500 for multidimensional and/or multinuclear experiments. Other departmental resources include mass spectrometry services, a machine shop, electronics shop, and glassblowing services, in addition to personal computers and workstations available for use to members of the Chemistry Department.
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