There are several clubs and organizations developed by graduate students and faculty in the Chemistry department. These clubs help expand career skills in multi-disciplinary areas and offer unique volunteer opportunities. They also provide forums for 1st year students to integrate into the department and meet advanced students.
Graduate Student Council
The Chemistry Graduate Student Council (GSC) is a student group led by a team of elected officers that serve the department by sponsoring social events, fund-raisers, and holding monthly meetings to update the graduate student body on ongoing projects/initiatives, receive graduate students' feedback. Graduate students are encouraged to actively participate in the GSC monthly meetings to discuss topics and raise concerns that the GSC can communicate to the DGS and the Graduate Studies Committee.
GSC meetings occur the 1st Thursday of each month at 12 pm in PLSB 403. Meetings last an hour at most and food is provided. Reminders of the meeting and any changes to the date, time, or room will be sent out via the grad student listserv. If you don’t receive an email or would like more information on attending a meeting, please email Miranda Wood (mkw4vr@virginia.edu) or another GSC officer.
To provide the GSC with anonymous feedback, use this link.
GSC Officers 2024-2025
President: Miranda Wood
Vice President/Green Labs Rep: Mary Jo McCormick
Treasurer: Elizabeth Johnson
Secretary: Zoe Gehman
Social Chairs: Mollie Morrow, Carson Starnes, and Ashleigh Williamson
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Council Rep: Megan Garris
Director of Graduate Students Ambassador: Nick Corsello
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Liaisons: Rachita Dash, Juaneisha Finnie, and Gabe Halford
Student Invited Speaker Reps: Megan Moberg, Lauren Andrews, and Josh Heman-Ackah
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Journal Club
This monthly journal club aims to discuss peer-reviewed papers about DEI in STEM across a wide range of topics (e.g. STEM disparities across race, gender,
disability, faith, sexuality, etc.). All students, postdocs, staff, and faculty are invited and welcome to attend and encouraged to sign up for our DEI email listhost to receive updates on DEI events, news, and conversation in the department of Chemistry. For any other questions contact Dr. Rebecca Pompano (rrp2z@virginia.edu).
Career Seminar Series
Started in 2021, the Career Seminar Series aims to provide Chemistry graduate students with opportunities to learn from and connect with Chemistry PhDs who have pursued non-academic
17 careers. Seminars usually last 45 minutes with interactive Q & A sessions and 1-on-1 opportunities to network with the presenter(s) after. Previous speakers have worked for Dow, HemoShear Therapeutics, Contraline, Cerillo, CvilleBioHub, and the British-Embassy in Washington, D.C. Contact Summer Xu (bkm6ab@virginia.edu) for more information.
Learning through Experimentation, Awareness, and Demonstration (LEAD)
LEAD is a graduate student-run program dedicated to promoting chemistry and science education at the local level through classroom and after-school programs in central Virginia. Past events include school visits for experiment demonstrations, participation in chemistry summer camps run by LEAD and BLAST! through the Virginia Space Grant Consortium, and demonstrations with the Virginia Discovery Museum in Charlottesville. In the future, LEAD will continue to bring chemistry education to schools and expand to TikTok content in collaboration with ChemSciComm. Event information is shared via email or our Facebook here. Contact LEAD 2023-2024 president Jherian Mitchell-Jones (jkm4tw@virginia.edu) if you have any questions.
UVA ChemSciComm
Started by Professor Charlie Machan in 2021, UVA ChemSciComm provides multimedia platforms for chemistry graduate students to become effective scientific communicators. UVA ChemSciComm updates the department and university with exciting research from Chemistry faculty and students aimed at different audiences. Their pieces can be found on their main website, and they can be found on Twitter. Contact Professor Machan (machan@virginia.edu) if you have questions or would like to join.