PhD in Chemistry (48 months)

The Graduate Program in Chemistry of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, started in August 1995, to incorporate the previous Graduate in Organic Chemistry (MSc: 1985 and PhD: 1990) Inorganic Chemistry (MSc: 1989), and Physical Chemistry (MSc: 1989). The creation of this new program allowed Analytical Chemistry and Biochemistry researchers, who did not participate in any graduate programs in this faculty, to become members of the program. This integration produced a graduate program that relied on an academic teaching staff with extensive experience in training teachers and doctors by means of a consistent curriculum that offered a wide choice of research areas as well as adequate infrastructure.

The interdisciplinary nature of this program deserves to be highlighted. Whereas Biochemistry and Biophysics are officially classified as distinct areas within the area of Biological Sciences, while Chemistry belongs as to the Exact Sciences, this program, however, considers the Chemistry in its broadest aspect, since it permeates the traditional areas of Exact Sciences, Life Sciences, and Social Sciences. A feature of the program is that it is not structured on the basis of the traditional division into concentration areas. In fact, implementation of a single area (Chemistry) dropped certain barriers resulting from the coexistence of independent programs in the same department, enabling more effective collaboration between different research groups, greater flexibility when planning students’ study, and more efficient allocation of resources.