Christopher Arumainayagam

Christopher Arumainayagam is a Professor of Chemistry at Wellesley College and has been a member of the Wellesley College faculty since 1990. He received the A.B. degree from Harvard University in 1985 and the Ph.D. degree in Chemical Physics from Stanford University in 1990. He was a visiting scholar in the Chemistry Department at Harvard University from 1991 to 1992.He has been the Chair of the Chemistry Department since July 2007.

He teaches a broad spectrum of courses at all levels of the curriculum: first semester of introductory chemistry, both semesters of physical chemistry, and, occasionally, seminar courses in surface science and computational chemistry. He received a Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc.) which recognizes, among other achievements, "continuing commitment to the encouragement and support of undergraduates in the chemical sciences through teaching, mentorship, and research with undergraduate participation." Since 2000, he has been the principal investigator for three successful REUgrants from the National Science Foundation to Wellesley College for undergraduate summer research in the Chemistry Department.

His research in surface chemistry and radiation chemistry has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (RUI), American Chemical Society, Research Corporation, and the Henry Dreyfus Foundation. He organized a radiation chemistry symposium at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Chicago in 2001. His experimental protocol to study radiation chemistry has been well received by the scientific community, as evidenced by invited talks he delivered at the 44th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Radiation Research Society in1996 and the Gordon Research Conference on radiation chemistry in 1998. He also delivered a plenary lecture at an international workshop on radiation chemistry organized by the Department of Energy in 1998. It is noteworthy that the basis of these invited talks is research done exclusively at Wellesley College with undergraduates.His research has been highlighted in the sixth edition of Steven Zumdahl's Chemical Principles, the advanced general chemistry text book commonly used at selective institutions.

He was a member of the Advisory Board of the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (ACS-PRF) from 2000 to 2004.

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Profile last updated: 8/08