ABOUT THE HOST

The 2012 Chemistry Olympiad will be held on campus at the University
of Maryland, College Park.

The University of Maryland, College Park, the venue for the theoretical and practical examination,  is a public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. Founded in 1856, the University of Maryland is the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland. With a fall 2010 enrollment of more than 37,000 students, Maryland is the largest university in the state and the largest in the Washington Metropolitan Area. It is a member of the Association of American Universities and a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference athletic league.

The University of Maryland's proximity to the nation's capital has resulted in strong research partnerships with the Federal government. Many members of the faculty receive research funding and institutional support from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Homeland Security.

The university's faculty has included four Nobel Prize laureates. The earliest recipient, Juan Ramón Jiménez, was a professor of Spanish language and literature and won the 1956 prize for literature. Four decades later, physics professor William Daniel Phillips won the prize in physics in 1997. In 2005, professor emeritus of economics and public policy Thomas Schelling was awarded the prize in economics. In 2006, adjunct professor of physics and senior astrophysicist at NASA John C. Mather was awarded the prize in physics alongside George Smoot.  In addition, two University of Maryland alumni are Nobel Prize laureates; Herbert Hauptman won the 1985 prize in chemistry and Raymond Davis Jr. won the 2002 prize in physics.

The University of Maryland offers 127 undergraduate degrees and 112 graduate degrees in thirteen different colleges and schools: A. James Clark School of Engineering; College of Agriculture and Natural Resources; College of Art and Humanities; College of Behavioral and Social Sciences; College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Science, the home of the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; College of Educational; College of Information of Journalism; Robert H. Smith School of Business; School of Architecture, Planning, & Preservation; School of Public Health; Office of Undergraduate Studies; and School of Public Policy.

The University is ranked 56th in the latest 2011 U.S. News and World Report rankings of "National Universities" across the United States, and it is ranked 18th nationally among public universities. 29 undergraduate and graduate programs are ranked in the top 10 and 90 programs are in the top 25.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranked Maryland as 36th in the world as well as 8th among public flagship universities in the United States. Newsweek ranked the University of Maryland as 45th in their ranking "global universities." The THE-QS World University Rankings ranked the University of Maryland 104 on its top 400 universities in the world in 2010.