The Proposed Interdisciplinary Graduate Group in Green Chemistry

The principles of green chemistry - and the policies that enable their adoption - link the science of chemistry with public and environmental health protection. By addressing the molecular origins of product waste, contamination, and harmful eco/human exposures, green chemistry offers promise toward more long-term solutions. The faculty of UC Berkeley asserts that creating a new generation of scholars in green chemistry is essential to building an environmentally sustainable future and anticipates a growing need for well-trained graduates with broad exposure to the diverse disciplines that link green chemistry.

UC Berkeley has many established graduate programs in a number of fields that cut across conventional departmental lines yet comprise distinct cores of knowledge. These interdisciplinary programs, organized under the Dean of the Graduate College, are administered by groups of faculty from several related departments. The affiliated faculty of the BCGC is in the process of forming an Interdisciplinary Graduate Group in Green Chemistry to oversee and develop the educational initiatives of the Center.

Several educational initiatives are planned:

1. During the Spring 2011 semester we will be offering an interdisciplinary Green Chemistry course for graduate students. This course is being designed collaboratively with faculty and staff representing each of the BCGC themes. This course, along with other interdisciplinary courses developed  by BCGC faculty, will create the core green chemistry curriculum for graduate students from any department.
2. A designated  emphasis in green chemistry will establish a formal recognition of graduate study in an area of focus that is relevant to two or more existing doctoral degree programs. A designated emphasis is similar to a minor, but at the graduate level. The designated emphasis in green chemistry will be designed to complement existing Ph.D. programs and to provide opportunities for interdisciplinary study with faculty from other departments.
3. The graduate group will promote interdisciplinary  research by offering 1 year fellowships to motivated graduate students. These fellowships will be awarded to novel projects which engage faculty in two or more of the departments represented in BCGC.