Professor of Chemistry and Senior Advisor to the Dean for Research Strategy and Development
Stephen Bradforth grew up in England, receiving his B.A. from Cambridge University in 1987 and his Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley in 1992. After three years as a postdoctoral associate at the University of Chicago with Graham Fleming, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor at USC in 1996. He is now a Full Professor of Chemistry in the USC Dornsife College.
After heading up the Physical and Theoretical chemistry section of the department for six years, Steve was department Chairman from August 2014 to January 2017. He then served as Divisional Dean for Natural Sciences and Mathematics (2017-2020) and Divisional Dean for Physical Sciences and Mathematics (2020-21) in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Since 2021, he is Senior Advisor to Dean Amber Miller, with responsibilities for Research Strategy and Development across the Dornsife College.
Bradforth’s honors include a Dreyfus New Faculty award, a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, and most recently the Senior Experimental Physical Chemistry award of the ACS Physical Chemistry Division (2023). He is a Cottrell Scholar and STAR awardee (2019) of the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. At USC he has been recognized with a Junior (2001) and Senior (2022) Raubenheimer award from the Dornsife College and the university Mellon Mentoring Award (2014). He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol, Hong Kong University and the J. Heyrovksy Institute in Prague.
Professor Bradforth’s research involves the application of ultrafast laser techniques to problems in damage to DNA both from UV light and high energy radiation, the pathways to ionization for condensed phase systems and characterizing light harvesting in molecular and nanoparticle based materials for solar energy. His lab utilizes femtosecond laser based spectroscopies to elucidate mechanisms in liquid solution photochemistry as well as novel nanoscale materials and has particular expertise in photoelectron, ionization and excitonic transport processes. His group collaborates broadly with researchers in medicine, electrical and biomedical engineering, physics, physical chemistry and theory at USC and around the world. His teaching includes undergraduate General Chemistry, Physical Chemistry for the Life Sciences, and graduate Molecular Spectroscopy as well as freshman seminar classes on Research in Chemistry and the Global Energy Crisis. He currently directs a department-level pilot project on reforming Faculty teaching Evaluation funded by the Association of American Universities (AAU).
