"Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry"

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Job ID: 295104
Location: Kennesaw, Georgia
Full/Part Time: Full Time
Regular/Temporary: Regular

Job Summary

Kennesaw State University is now accepting applications for a full-time, tenure-track faculty position as Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry with a preferred start date of August 2026. This is a nine-month contracted position is for work to be performed in the state of Georgia.

The area of concentration is research that integrates theoretical organic chemistry with molecular modeling and design, high-performance computing (HPC), and potentially artificial intelligence (AI)-driven approaches to advance molecular design, elucidate reaction mechanisms, or address related challenges in organic, physical organic, organometallic, bioorganic, or medicinal chemistry.

This position would have access to KSU's research hub for data-intensive chemical modeling. The versatile high-performance computer cluster (vHPC) launched in 2025 has 12 compute nodes and is offered as a research computing core service. Each of these nodes has two CPUs (Intel Xenon Gold 6342 @ 2.80 GHz with 24-cores each) and 4 GPUs (NVIDIA Ampere A100 80 GB PCIe) with 512 GB RAM. The compute nodes are interconnected via a fast InfiniBand network that also connects to ~360 TB of compute storage and to large, longer-term petabyte-scale storage (~6 PB). The computer cluster offers over 400 software modules (e.g., Gromacs, Gaussian, Mathematica, MATLAB, MOLPRO, Turbomole).

Responsibilities

• Teaching undergraduate and/or graduate courses in chemistry and/or biochemistry, with a specialization in organic chemistry-related courses.
• Mentoring undergraduate and graduate (M.S.) students.
• Taking a leadership role in developing an externally funded, collaborative research program that engages undergraduate and graduate students as contributing co-investigators in the area of computational chemistry.
• Committing to teaching that advances student success and prioritizes meaningful investment in KSU students.
• Participation in professional service activities within the Department, the College of Science and Mathematics, the University and beyond.

Teaching assignments will be based on earned degrees and SACSCOC Faculty Credentials Guidelines.

Required Qualifications

• A Doctorate degree, or the foreign equivalent, in Chemistry, Biochemistry or a closely related discipline is required at the time of hire.
• Post-doctoral training, or equivalent relevant postgraduate experiences with a demonstrated track record of peer-reviewed publications.
• A well-articulated research agenda in the area of computational chemistry (molecular design, organic reactivity, catalysis, reaction pathways, materials design, or related fields in organic, organometallic, physical organic, bioorganic, or medicinal chemistry) that demonstrate strong potential for securing external funding and effectively incorporates graduate (M.S.) and undergraduate research students.
• Demonstrated expertise in computational chemistry by a minimum 2 years of experience using major computational chemistry software packages (e.g., Gaussian, ORCA, NWChem Q-Chem, or Amber) or peer reviewed publications in computational chemistry where the candidate served as lead or primary contributor.
• Ability to teach organic chemistry-related coursework at both the undergraduate and graduate levels as evidenced by graduate-level coursework or prior teaching experience in organic chemistry or closely related coursework.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior teaching experience, especially in organic chemistry.
• Prior success in securing extramural funding, especially those that may be transferable to this position.
• Demonstrate expertise in mathematical algorithms, high-performance computing, AI/ML tools, quantum chemical methods, molecular dynamics, or data driven modeling to investigate organic reactivity, catalysis, reaction pathways, materials design, or related fields.

Required Documents to Attach

1. Cover Letter
2. Current Curriculum Vitae
3. Unofficial Undergraduate and Graduate Transcripts (Official Transcripts and Official International Course-by-Course Evaluations due upon hire)
4. Statement of Research/Scholarship Interests including which areas of chemistry your program will engage in at KSU, and a list of equipment needs (5 pages max)
5. Statement of Teaching Philosophy, including how you will advance student success at KSU (2 pages max)
6. Names, phone numbers, and email addresses of at least 3 references

Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Apply Before Date

Review of applications will begin immediately. For full consideration, please apply by March 27, 2026.

Contact Information

For questions about this faculty opening, please contact Daniela Tapu, PhD, dtapu@kennesaw.edu.