There have been many events to celebrate in our department this year, but current difficulties and uncertainties dominate my attention. The past year has brought many challenges to our department.
Universities in the U.S. are experiencing unprecedented pressure from the federal government, and ours is no different. The UW–Madison leadership has imposed budget cuts in response to this pressure. For departments in the College of Letters & Science, which include chemistry, the current budget cut is 7%. With careful management, we think we can accommodate the diminished budget without layoffs, but achieving this goal comes at a cost in terms of our mission. For example, we will be forced to curtail substantially the number of graduate acceptances this winter, to hold down the size of the class that starts in fall 2026. We have a profound need for new faculty, but our ability to search for new colleagues is limited. We are struggling to fund a robust schedule of seminars by external scholars, a feature of our program that has long been extremely important to our students and faculty. To stay cutting-edge, we desperately need to replace aging shared instrumentation.
Despite these challenges, which are common across academia in the U.S., we remain committed to our mission of education and scholarship. This fall, we have seen the largest undergraduate enrollment ever in chemistry courses. Our faculty members, collectively, continue to engage with a large body of energetic and committed graduate students and post-doctoral scholars. Serving student needs is our primary motivation, and we are doing our best to meet these needs despite current and looming constraints.
On the positive side, we completed a year-long self-study and provided a comprehensive review to the College of Letters & Science in May. Generating this document helped us understand our strengths and highlighted opportunities for innovation and improvement. The College is convening an external committee to assess the department, based in part on the comprehensive report we provided. Many faculty members received honors this past year that reflected their scholarly accomplishments; you can read about these honors on pages 16-17. New space for Chemical Education scholarship was completed last winter, and a new floor of research space should be completed next spring in the North Tower.
Several faculty members have departed over the past year. Bob Hamers retired in August. He was preceded by Dave Schwartz (split appointment with Genetics) in January. Read more about their developments on pages 20-21. Ive Hermans recently moved to the Johns Hopkins University. Andy Buller will depart before the end of this year, to relocate to the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (UK).
Over the past year, chemistry searched for a new faculty member under the auspices of the RISE-EARTH initiative at UW–Madison. We were delighted to hire Dr. Frank Gao, a specialist in the characterization of ultra-thin materials; he’ll join our ranks in the fall of 2026. Read more about Dr. Gao on pages 18-19. We have just initiated a search as part of the RISE-THRIVE initiative.
You have been an important part of our work to produce knowledge that improves the human condition, and scientists equipped to grapple with a wide array of unmet needs. These goals become more important as large segments of our society seem to turn away from science and the benefits it can provide. Right now, our department needs help from you more than ever. Please consider a gift to the department this year. Contributions will help us maintain excellence as we continue to pursue our mission of scholarship and education.
Best,
Professor Sam Gellman
Irving Shain Chair of Chemistry | Vilas Research Professor