The University of Montana Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Congratulations to the UM Chemistry & Biochemistry Class of 2026!
🐻👨‍🎓🐾We're so proud of you! 🐾👩‍🎓🐻

Congratulations to the UM Chemistry & Biochemistry Class of 2026!
We're so proud of you!

More than 2,000 students who went The Montana Way will graduate Saturday during University of Montana Commencement ceremonies.

Did your student or friend make the list? Congratulate them in the comments!

🎓👉 bit.ly/UMspringGrads26

Find the graduation livestreams here: umt.edu/registrar/commencement/springcommencement.php

A Beer Made by Grizzlies, For Grizzlies: UM’s Brewing Science Class, which is part of a six-class certificate in the Department of Chemistry in UM’s College of Science, originally developed the recipe for 1901. https://www.umt.edu/news/2026/04/042726beer.php

Wang Lab Awarded $1.2M NIH Grant

The Wang lab in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, College of Science University of Montana was recently awarded a $1.2 million R01 research grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) to develop biomimetic and bio-inspired metal catalysts that find many applications in pharmaceutical and energy science. The Wang lab has a long-time research thrust in studying the structures, properties, and functions of metals in biology using synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational approaches. With this 4-year grant, which starts on April 1, 2026, Dr. Wang and his group plan to synthesize unprecedented cobalt and nickel coordination complexes having unusually high oxidation states that can be employed to study fundamental and critical bond breaking and bond forming processes in biocatalysis. This research will provide new and transformative knowledge about these reactivities, ultimately leading to the development of new pharmaceutical and therapeutic agents.

Dr. Wang joined UM in 2015 and is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He is also the Principal Investigator of another research project funded by NSF in 2025 and has been the co-Director of the Montana Science Fair since 2020. In his spare time, Dr. Wang likes reading, photography, riding motorcycles, and playing billiards with his students.

The Montana Science Fair needs more judges. Please consider signing up to serve as a judge and support future young scientists and engineers across Montana.

The Science Fair is looking for judges! The 71st annual Montana Science Fair will take place on Monday, March 30th at the Adams Center. We're looking for 300 volunteers to serve as judges (with lunch provided!). Use the QR code on the flyer to sign up or visit the Science Fair's web page (linked below) to learn more. If you have questions, please contact Jessica Shaffer.

This is a great opportunity to support future scientists, and the Science Fair committee hopes to hear from you soon!

https://www.umt.edu/montana-science-fair/

Congrats to all the winners at the GradCon 2026, including our own grad student Wenting He, who won the best STEM Oral Presentation Award.

Proud to present Dr. Lixu Jin, a recent UM chemistry graduate. The University of Montana Graduate School

🔥💨Lixu Jin, a recent grad of UM’s Ph.D. chemistry program, finished his academic journey smoking hot by publishing an article in Science Advances, one of the top research journals in his field!

Though he grew up on the other side of the world in Hangzhou, China, Lixu Jin realized the University of Montana’s research expertise in wildfire and smoke was a perfect fit for him.

“UM gave me that, and it also gave me strong mentoring and the chance to do impactful research in a region where wildfire smoke is an important real-world problem,” he said. “During my Ph.D., I built skills using different kinds of models to interpret field measurements and connect observations to atmospheric chemistry.”

Full story 👉 bit.ly/UMlixuJin