President: Trevor Tumiel (Krauss Group)
Vice President: Nikki Bakas (Neidig Group)

Community Outreach

If you enjoy fun, engaging science demonstrations and want to help young students explore just how awesome chemistry can be, then CGA is perfect for you! In past years, we’ve worked closely with members of the department to organize interactive experiments for National Chemistry Week that reached over 600 students (over the course of one week!) across the Rochester City School district. We’ve formed a strong partnership with Dr. Charles T. Lunsford School No.19, participating in their annual Science Discovery Day for the past two years. Recently, we’ve deliberated ways to reach out to high school students, potentially discussing such topics as earning a degree in the sciences, as well as future career opportunities.

Social Activities

CGA plans and organizes social events with the goal of bringing students, staff, and faculty of the department together in a non-academic environment. We have the advantage of living in a city with many professional sports teams, so we often enjoy heading to Blue Cross Arena or Frontier Field to watch a hockey or baseball game. If sports aren't for you, join us for a movie night and help us eat the seemingly endless amounts of food we purchase for all those who attend (when we could meet in person).

We’ve recently partnered with other student organizations, such as Chem in Motion, to assist with the great social events they organize.

Department Events

CGA works closely with the department to plan annual events such as the Fall Luncheon and Awards Ceremony, the Holiday Party, and the Summer Picnic. All of these events offer great opportunities for students, staff and faculty to engage, so we are always very happy to work with the amazing people who make such gatherings possible.

We also strive to facilitate inter-departmental relationships: we recently organized a poster session that brought members of the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering departments together to learn about each other’s work and open a dialogue between people in our scientific community that might lead to future collaborations. Another poster session is currently being planned!

Chem In Motion was created to promote good mental and physical health among chemistry graduate students. We organize monthly events centered around forging lasting connections among members of the department. Some of these activities include:

• Sledding
• Zoom yoga
• Outdoor workouts
• Social hours
• Summer kickball league

We hope that these events will continue to happen in the future and expand to include undergrads and maybe even graduate students from other departments.

Group leader(s): Jackson Hernandez (Frontier Group)

The Undergraduate Chemistry Council is a group of students interested in chemistry that work to engage the University and Rochester community through social, educational, and outreach events throughout the year.

Our department is proud to be a partner of the ACS Bridge Program. The goal of this program is to increase the number of chemistry PhDs awarded to underrepresented students (defined by the project as primarily Black, Latinx and Indigenous students) by providing substantial mentoring to students as they transition into graduate programs.