Professor Timothy F. Jamison has been named the new head of the Department of Chemistry, effective July 1.
“I am honored and delighted to have the opportunity to serve chemistry, the School of Science, and MIT,” said Jamison, who was recommended by a selection committee led by former department head Timothy Swager, the John D. MacArthur Professor in the Department of Chemistry.
Michael Sipser, dean of the School of Science said, “I’m delighted that Tim Jamison has agreed to lead the chemistry department. Tim is an outstanding chemist who is deeply committed to the research and education missions of the department, as well as to the large community of its members. I look forward to working with him in his new role.”
During the past year, Jamison chaired a chemistry faculty committee to enhance the department’s activities at the intersection of community and collaboration. His efforts in this area were noted by the selection committee, which reported that Jamison’s candidacy had strong support among all groups in the department, including graduate students.
Jamison will succeed the current department head in chemistry, Sylvia Ceyer, the John C. Sheehan Professor of Chemistry, who has served since 2010.
"During the past five years, Sylvia has steered the department through a myriad of challenges from funding for basic research to the completion of the renovation of the chemistry space in Building 2,” Sipser said. “During this time, Sylvia has focused on the future of the department, hiring stellar new faculty members in all major fields of chemistry. I am grateful to her for her service to the chemistry department and the School of Science."
Jamison has received numerous honors and awards in recognition of his research and educational contributions, including the Council of Chemistry Research Collaboration Award; the Royal Society of Chemistry Merck Award; the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society; a National Science Foundation Career Award; the Amgen Young Investigator Award; the GlaxoSmithKline Scholar Award; and the School of Science Teaching Prize for Undergraduate Education. Jamison is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He also serves as an associate editor of Chemical Reviews, on the international advisory board for the Journal of Flow Chemistry, and on the academic advisory board for Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis.
Jamison's primary research interest is in organic chemistry, specifically in the assembly of molecules. The development of new chemical reactions, catalysts, strategies of synthesis, and technologies for synthesis support this overarching aim. He is a co-principal investigator in the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing and has several active collaborations with colleagues in the School of Science and the School of Engineering.
Jamison joined the MIT faculty as an assistant professor in 1999. He was tenured in 2006 and promoted to full professor in 2009. Prior to joining MIT, he earned a BS in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley and then continued his studies as a Fulbright scholar at the Eidgenassische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich. Jamison carried out his doctoral research in chemistry at Harvard University under the supervision of Stuart L. Schrieber. His postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Eric N. Jacobsen, also at Harvard, was supported by a prestigious Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Fellowship.
