American Chemical Society

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Chapter at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is dedicated to fostering solidarity among undergraduate scientists and encouraging a love for chemistry. They aim to provide early career development through various events and mentorship, ultimately facilitating a forum for networking with peers and professors.

With an approximate member count of 300-400 undergraduate students, ACS represents a diverse array of chemists, from those in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Biochemistry, Chemistry Minors, and all those in between. But as President Parmeet Kaur notes, “Any major or curious student is able to join!”

Each semester, ACS hosts 3 Pizza Lectures and 3 Chemistry Cafes, events geared towards giving interested students more facetime with professors and their research. 

In the more formal Pizza Lectures, invited professors from both UIUC and other universities come to give a presentation about their research, typically highlighting a published paper from their group’s recent work. To help students become more comfortable reading and understanding scientific literature, ACS provides printed copies of the discussed paper for all attending students to make it easier to follow along.

This year, ACS has featured Pizza Lectures from Professor Martin Gruebele (whose experimental and computational work focuses on topics in chemical and biological physics)  and Professor Jeff Moore (whose current research focuses on polymer mechanochemistry).

ACS’s Chemistry Cafes, in comparison to the Pizza Lectures, are more casual opportunities for students to gain some early career development and mentorship. Over coffee and donuts, students find new opportunities to converse with professors about their research and careers.

This year, ACS has hosted Chemistry Cafes with Professor Anastasia Manesis (whose work focuses on structural and mechanistic studies of metalloenzymes) and Professor Huimin Zhao (a professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Bioengineering, whose work is dedicated to engineering functionally improved or novel proteins, pathways, and genomes).

Halloween Fun Night

This fall, ACS also threw their third annual “Halloween Fun Night” for community elementary children. With everyone gathered in Noyes 100, ACS put on a Halloween-themed magic show, with classic demonstrations such as elephant’s toothpaste, liquid nitrogen and hot water (that creates hissing, potion-like explosions), and color changing acid-base solutions!

You can join anytime! Just come to an event! Events are publicized in their newsletter two weeks in advance, as well as on ACS’s GroupMe, Instagram (@illinois_acs), and website (acs.chemistry.illinois.edu). 

To be added to ACS’s mailing list, fill out the membership form on their website.

To become an official member of ACS, it is:

$50 for a 4-year membership or $20 for a 1-year membership and includes 1 T-Shirt each year! To pay, please see ACS’s website for more information.

Additionally, ACS is a Chapter of the National American Chemical Society, giving them the ability to sponsor students interested in attending a conference. 

Pizza Lecture in Noyes 100