Pete Chambers is the Director of Shared Research Support Services for the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. He obtained Bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering from Pitt in 2000 and went on to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under Prof Caroline Ross working in magnetic thin films and physical vapor deposition for applications in hard drive media. After leaving MIT, Pete worked as a facilitator for the Massachusetts Mathematics Partnership at Lesley University under Prof Kenneth Gross before returning to the lab at the Boston University Center for Chemical Methodologies and Library Development (BUCMLD) under Prof John Porco, where he specialized in automation assisted organic synthesis. Pete returned to Pittsburgh and Pitt in 2005, taking a position at the Center for Chemical Methodologies and Library Development at the University of Pittsburgh under Prof Peter Wipf. At the UPCMLD, Pete focused on quality control and compound curation of the 50,000+ member UPCMLD compound library and grew to be in charge of the maintenance, upkeep, and training for the much of the Center’s instrumentation. In 2015, Pete completed his Master’s degrees in Business Administration and Civil and Environmental Engineering, also from Pitt, focusing on Strategy and Operations, and Environmental and Geotechnical Engineering, respectively.
In 2014, Pete was excited to continue his service to Pitt by becoming the first ever Director of Shared Research Support Services under the Dean's Office, where he oversees many of the facilities of which he was once a customer. He is ultimately responsible for the School’s shops, shared instrumentation facilities, internal scientific suppliers, and the small animal facility. Pete is involved with many of the safety committees on campus, actively supports large instrumentation grant proposals, and strives to support his teams and strengthen connections within the University at large to foster research within the Dietrich School. He has been published in a wide array of peer reviewed journals including the Journal of Applied Physics, Tetrahedron, The Journal of Chromatography A, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh, and the Pennsylvania Freemasons.