The School of Chemistry is a vibrant community of 22 academic staff members, approx. 50 postdoctoral researchers and over 100 postgraduate research students that generates an annual research income in excess of €5 million. These funds are attracted by research across the School’s three core disciplines; Inorganic and Synthetic Materials Chemistry, Organic, Medicinal and Biological Chemistry and Physical, Computational and Materials Chemistry.
Exciting research topics currently under investigation in the School are the synthesis and characterisation of novel inorganic materials including nanomaterials and supramolecular systems, drug design, development of new synthetic methods, biomimetic catalysis, photochemistry, photomedicine, electrochemistry, surface science and the development and application of predictive computational modelling. This diverse research is strengthened and supported by the School’s strong links with a number of Institutes of excellence.
All of these activities are facilitated by excellent research equipment housed in the School, which includes two CCD single crystal diffractometers, a circular dichroism spectrometer with linear dichroism accessory, three high-resolution electrospray mass spectrometer and four high-field NMR spectrometers (300, two 400 (one with multinuclear probe), and one 600 MHz) as well as specialised equipment for the study of photophysical, electrochemical and nanoscale systems. Computational capabilities include access to a 760 node cluster in the Trinity Centre for High Performance Computing (TCHPC).
The School offers both Ph.D. and M.Sc. degrees by research. Typically, a M.Sc. takes between one and two years with a Ph.D. degree taking between three and four years to complete. In addition to conducting research, students attend a number of specialist modules, weekly research seminars and also participate in safety and other technical courses.
Research students obtain funding from a number of sources. These include national programmes (e.g. SFI and the IRC), College scholarships and direct funding from individual supervisors. Please visit the web pages of research groups in the School to see what areas may be of interest to you. Following contact with your potential supervisor, if you are offered a place, you will be given a link to the admissions website through which you will need to make a formal application.
In 2007 the School of Chemistry in association with the School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, University College Dublin, launched a joint programme of graduate taught modules. This is one aspect of the close interaction of the two leading Irish Chemistry research schools within the Dublin Chemistry (DubChem) initiative. Students are expected to take several modules during their Ph.D. programme to fulfil the credit requirement for their degrees. More details can be found on the School website.
In a future of increasingly interdisciplinary research the School of Chemistry enjoys strong collaborations with colleagues in the physical, technological and biological sciences throughout the College, and at national and international levels. Through these initiatives the School of Chemistry continues to grow as a natural strategic centre and at the interface between Chemistry and the Life Sciences and between Chemistry and the Materials/Nanosciences.
