Stephen Bradforth named USC Dornsife divisional dean for natural sciences
Stephen Bradforth, professor and chair of chemistry, has been appointed divisional dean for natural sciences at USC Dornsife by Dean Amber Miller, effective Jan. 15.
As the divisional dean for natural sciences, Bradforth will coordinate strategic planning efforts within the USC Dornsife Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and collaborate with leadership within the College and across the university to support and enhance both research and education in basic science at USC.
“At USC, Steve has been instrumental in enhancing and bridging the various areas in the natural sciences, particularly undergraduate biochemistry and graduate programs at the interface between chemistry and biology,” Miller said. “He brings to the position outstanding credentials both as a researcher and as an educator.”
Bradforth joined the Department of Chemistry in 1996 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 2002 and full professor in 2008. He has held numerous leadership positions within the department, including head of the physical and theoretical chemistry section, vice chair, and since 2014, chair of the department.
Bradforth said he has seen research intensity at USC Dornsife advance tremendously over the past five years, and he sees opportunities in several convergent science areas within the college. “For example, continuing to blur the lines between fundamental physical science and the life sciences to find new solutions to grand challenges in human health, the health of the oceans or powering the planet more sustainably.”
As a physical chemist, Bradforth’s lab designs experiments to gain a deeper understanding of how the inter-connected motions of molecules impact chemical reactions in complex but frequently encountered environments such as the aqueous milieu of cells or in functional molecular materials. His research applies ultrafast laser techniques to address contemporary scientific challenges that span multiple fields. Examples include optimizing energy conversion in solar cells, understanding how sunlight-induced damage takes place in DNA and improving radiation treatments using nanoparticle therapies to kill cancer cells.
His team collaborates broadly with researchers in electrical and biomedical engineering, cancer nanomedicine and physics as well as with theoretical and experimental chemists at USC and throughout the world. As a USC Dornsife faculty fellow, Bradforth designed a seminar to teach incoming freshmen about the Global Energy Crisis. He is active in recent national efforts, spearheaded by the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement and the Association of American Universities, to reform undergraduate STEM education in research-intensive universities.
Born in England, Bradforth earned his B.A. from Cambridge University in 1987 in natural sciences and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992. He then trained as a postdoctoral associate at the University of Chicago for three years before joining USC Dornsife. Bradforth has published 130 scientific papers and given over 160 scholarly presentations nationally and internationally. Bradforth’s honors include a Dreyfus New Faculty award and a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering. He is a Cottrell Scholar of the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement and a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). He currently serves on the Executive Committee of the APS Division of Chemical Physics. At USC, he has been awarded the Raubenheimer junior faculty award as well as the Mellon Mentoring award for mentoring of faculty.
In his new role, Bradforth sees his job as simply to recruit and retain the very best teacher-scholars so that USC Dornsife is an ever more exciting place to be involved in scientific research. He would also like to see USC Dornsife use its recent investment in research to achieve growth in its doctoral programs and provide more creative research opportunities for undergraduate majors.
“By investing in discovery and seeking fundamental new understanding, but also asking our scientists to forge closer collaborations with USC’s engineers, economists, biomedical researchers and practitioners, I’m betting research here at USC Dornsife will have an impact on how the 21st century develops,” he said.