Course Offerings

CHEM 710/7100 - Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Catalysis

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: M. Schlaf | Discipline: Inorganic | Campus: Guelph
Next to the mining and processing of metals (i.e., metallurgy), catalysis is arguably the most important technology underpinning our civilization. The production of almost everything – e.g., fertilizers, fuels, lubricants, polymers, detergents, drugs – depends on catalytic processes. This course will provide an introduction and overview of the field of catalysis discussing both heterogeneous supported metals and homogeneous transition metal complexes focusing ...

CHEM 720/7200 - Introduction to Experimental Design and C hemometrics

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: T. Gorecki | Discipline: Analytical |
Experimentation is one of the foundational pillars of science. Any theoretical hypothesis that is formulated must ultimately be proved or disproved by experiments. While the scientific method is generally intuitively understood by researchers, not all of them fully realize how various controllable and uncontrollable factors might affect their results. Also, the approach to experimentation is often far from optimal. The course will try to fill these voids by exploring the areas mentioned ...

CHEM 731/7310-01 - Vaccines

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: M. Monteiro | Discipline: Biochemistry | Campus: Guelph
CHEM 731(0)-01 covers the physical and immunogenic aspects vaccines. The main body of the course will be formed by in-class oral presentations based on recent literature provided by the instructor. Students and instructor will deliver in-depth analyses of articles describing the latest science in the fields of vaccine structure, biology, immunology and experimental methodology. The midterm and final exam will consist of a take-home problem set assignment. ...

CHEM 731/7310-02 - Rational Drug Design

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: S. Kalyaanamoorthy | Discipline: Biochemistry | Campus: Waterloo
The objective of this course is to provide an introduction to strategies for design of drug candidates, including structure-based and ligand-based drug discovery.  It builds upon molecular modelling principles introduced in CHEM 340 and will apply them to specific problems in drug design. Specific topics includes molecular modelling, and molecular dynamics using molecular mechanics principles, molecular docking and virtual screening of drug molecules to target proteins, computational ...

CHEM 731/7310-03 - Advanced NMR Theory

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: T. Dieckmann | Discipline: Biochemistry | Campus: Waterloo
This course covers the advanced theory of NMR spectroscopy, including energy level, vector model, density matrix and product operator formalism. Among the topics discussed are: • Basics of NMR spectroscopy • Spectrometer hardware • Energy level description of NMR spectroscopy • The vector model in NMR • Density matrix-based description of NMR • The product operator formalism and its application for analyzing pulse sequences. • ...

CHEM 750/7500-01 - Energy and Environment

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: K. Ghandi | Discipline: Physical | Campus: Guelph
By the end of this course students are expected to explain the details of at least one type of energy industry in depth, use effective communications skills for oral presentations while strengthening their skills in working with different sources to develop research and analytical skills in energy industry, write a research proposal to address problems in industry. analyze the modern literature on issues related to application of Energy and ...

CHEM 750/7500-02 - Geometric and Attention-focused Deep Learning Methods for Molecular Systems: An Independent Reading Course

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: S. Hopkins | Discipline: Physical | Campus: Waterloo
Deep learning frameworks are rapidly advancing chemistry by enabling generalizable in silico predictions of numerous chemical quantities. From the accurate prediction of protein folding from only FASTA strings to generative networks that can successfully propose novel drugs to near-instantaneous prediction of molecular HOMO-LUMO gaps, deep learning models are now impacting nearly every domain of chemistry. In this course, students will be exposed to the different deep learning ...

CHEM 764/7640 - Organic Spectroscopy

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: J.M. Chong | Discipline: Organic | Campus: Waterloo
Course objectives: 1. To gain an understanding of the general principles underlying various aspects of selectivity in organic synthesis 2. To learn specific synthetic methods and strategies used in modern organic synthesis 3. To gain a working (theoretical) knowledge of how to plan and execute synthetic routes to target organic molecules Week Topic Chapter 1 Selectivity in synthesis: regioselectivity, stereoselectivity and chemoselectivity 33, 34 2 ...

CHEM 770/7700 - Principles of Polymer Science

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: J. Duhamel | Discipline: Polymer | Campus: Waterloo
Basic definitions: Monomers, polymers, polymerization reactions. Polymer structure, nomenclature. Molecular weight distributions and average molecular weights. Chain conformations: End-to-end distance, radius of gyration, molecular dimensions, excluded volume. Molecular weight measurements: Colligative properties, osmometry, light scattering, viscosity, gel permeation chromatography. Step-growth polymerization. Types of reactions. Reactivity, kinetics. ...

CHEM 773/7730 - Polymer Synthesis and Self-Assembly

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: X. Wang | Discipline: Polymer | Campus: Waterloo
The course starts with an introduction to the design and synthesis of polymers with define chemical structures. A number of polymerization techniques will be descried briefly, including anionic, living free radical and migration insertion polymerizations. The principles guiding self-assembly behaviour of block copolymers and other building blocks will be discussed, followed by the material applications of the assembled polymeric ...

CHEM 784/7840 - Foundations of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Literature Review

Semester: Fall 2023 Professor: S. Hopkins | | Campus: Waterloo
TBA ...

CHEM 713/7130 - Inorganic Solid State Materials

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: H. Kleinke | Discipline: Inorganic | Campus: Waterloo
TBA ...

CHEM 720/7200 - Mass Spectrometry

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: W. Gabryelski | Discipline: Analytical | Campus: Guelph
Background Info: CHEM 7200/720 [0.5] is a graduate course in Mass Spectrometry (MS) with prior enrolments of 15-30 students in the class. During the three decades, mass spectrometry has evolved as a powerful technique for analyzing a variety of materials ranging from small molecules to large biopolymers. Mass spectrometry has been used in many areas of research including chemistry, biochemistry, environmental science, pharmacology, medicine, and forensics. This course ...

CHEM 731/7310 - Proteins

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: E. Meiering | Discipline: Biochemistry | Campus: Waterloo
TBA ...

CHEM 740/7400 - Computational Chemistry

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: M. Nooijen | Discipline: Theoretical | Campus: Waterloo
This course will provide a practical guide to quantum chemical calculations. The course will be held in a lab setting, and through meetings on Teams. Students will be performing calculations in small groups under guidance of the instructor. In addition, the lecture material will cover main topics in computational chemistry. A major component of the course is the computational research project. Each student in the class follows an individual trajectory, based on their interests and their ...

CHEM 750/7500-01 - Topics in Computational Chemistry

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: L. Chen | Discipline: Physical | Campus: Guelph
This course will cover a variety of topics in computational chemistry. Molecular simulation: molecular dynamics in various ensembles, Monte Carlo. Extracting properties from simulations: free energy, dynamical properties from time-correlation functions. Electronic structure theory: Hartree-Fock, density functional theory. ...

CHEM 750/7500-02 - Bioelectronics

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: S. Tang | Discipline: Physical | Campus: Waterloo
TBA ...

CHEM 7500-03 / NANO 602 - Structure and Spectroscopy of Nanoscale Materials

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: P. Radovanovic | Discipline: Physical | Campus: Waterloo
The objective of this course is to introduce students to different aspects of the structure of nanoscale materials (crystal, surface, and electronic structure) from the interdisciplinary point of view. The first part of the course will focus on the surfaces and interfaces, as an integral part of condensed phases, pertaining to nanoscience and nanotechnology. Due to the reduced sizes of nanostructures, ...

CHEM 750/7500-04 - Aqueous Solutions

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: P. Tremaine | Discipline: Physical | Campus: Guelph
An introduction to aqueous solution chemistry, from classical macroscopic descriptions to modern treatments of the properties of electrolytes and non-electrolytes at a molecular level. Synopsis: The purpose of the course is to provide an introduction to aqueous solution chemistry, from classical macroscopic descriptions to modern treatments of electrolytes and non-electrolytes at a molecular level. The properties of aqueous solutions have been the subject of study for ...

CHEM 760/7600 - Organic Materials Synthesis

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: D. Schipper | Discipline: Organic | Campus: Waterloo
Organic Materials Synthesis will familiarize students with modern techniques that are used to synthesize organic electronic materials (conjugated molecules and polymers). Methods to be introduced include Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions (Suzuki, Stille, Sonagashira etc.), other catalytic and stoichiometric techniques (Yamamoto, Kumada, Gilch etc.), oxidative polymerization (chemical and electrochemical) and C-H bond activation strategies. The methods will be discussed within the ...

CHEM 773/7730 - Advanced Polymerization Techniques

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: X. Wang | Discipline: Polymer | Campus: Waterloo
Synthesis of polymers with well-defined structures in terms of their architectures, chemical compositions, molecular weight etc. is a major concern of polymer chemistry. A number of polymerization techniques, such as anionic polymerization, living free radical polymerization, ring opening metathesis polymerization, have been developed and intensively researched in recent years. Consequently, polymer structure and property engineering has become possible, which extend the scope of material ...

CHEM 784/7840 - Foundations of Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Literature Review

Semester: Winter 2024 Professor: D. O'Flaherty | | Campus: Guelph
CHEM 784(0) is a required one term course for all graduate students who are enrolled for an MSc degree; students must complete the requirements for CHEM 784(0) within their first two terms in the program and are strongly encouraged to take this course in their first term. CHEM 784(0) is offered in Fall and Winter terms. The main goal of CHEM 784(0) is to encourage MSc students to learn to use scientific literature at an early stage of their program, to stimulate in-depth thinking ...