Dr. Gregory S. Tschumper has accepted an appointment to succeed Charles Hussey as the Chair of the University of Mississippi Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.  Dr. Hussey became the new associate dean for research and graduate education in the university’s College of Liberal Arts. Walter Cleland continues as Assistant Chair for the department.

Gregory Tschumper, Chair and Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry

 “It’s very humbling to be named chair because there have been so many people that I respect that have been in this office before,” Tschumper said.  Tschumper has watched the department grow since joining University of Mississippi in 2001 and what the previous department chair and other departmental leaders have accomplished.

“There have been a number of really great people in the department that have worked really hard to get us where we are today,” Tschumper said.

Tschumper received a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Winona State University in 1995. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry the University of Georgia in 1999. Tschumper also completed postdoctoral appointments at ETH Zürich, Switzerland and Emory University before coming to University of Mississippi.  Tschumper’s research is focused on the development and use of state-of-the-art electronic structure methods to describe the effects of weak non-covalent interactions in synthetic and biological materials.

Tschumper has received several professional honors and awards, including the 2015 University of Mississippi Faculty Achievement Award and the 2009 Cora Lee Graham Award for Outstanding Teaching of Freshmen.  He has also served as the Computational Chemistry Research Focus Group Leader on an EPSCoR award from the National Science Foundation that has brought in more than $20 million to the state of Mississippi for research and STEM education.