Department of Chemistry - CSU, Chico
Faculty and Staff
Christopher J. Nichols
Organic
Phone: 530-898-5541
Campus ZIP: 210
Department Phone: 530-898-5259
Building: PHSC 308
E-mail: cjnichols@csuchico.edu
Web Page: http://www.csuchico.edu/~nicholsc
Dr. Nichols was born in 1971 in Thompson, Manitoba, Canada. After spending two years at the University of Alberta in Edmonton he moved to Vancouver, BC and finished his BSc in chemistry at the University of British Columbia. During his undergraduate years he worked with Dr. Mark Hollingsworth (now at Kansas State), Dr. Derrick Clive (U of Alberta), Dr. Larry Weiler (deceased), and Dr. Chris Orvig (UBC) on projects involving organic and inorganic chemistry. Dr. Nichols earned an NSERC (Canada) scholarship and moved to California in 1992 to start his PhD program at UCLA under the direction of Dr. Michael Jung. His projects involved the synthesis of non-natural nucleosides and sugars, and he earned his PhD in 1997. After working for two years at The Scripps Research Institute with Nobel laureate K. Barry Sharpless, Nichol joined the faculty at CSU, Chico in 1999. Dr. Nichols earned tenure and was promoted to associate professor in 2005.
Dr. Nichols has taught introductory and advanced courses in organic chemistry, as well as general chemistry classes and has developed a new course in chemistry teaching methods. He has received extramural funding for both curricular modifications in the teaching lab and for research into the synthesis of natural products. Dr. Nichols continues to work towards the synthesis of marine natural products and on the modification of research projects for use in the Chem 370M laboratory class.