[2] Although Berkeley began offering chemistry courses in 1869, the College was not officially established until 1872, awarding its first Ph.D. in 1885 to John Maxson Stillman, who later founded the chemistry department at Stanford University.

[1] Faculty and researchers at the College and affiliated with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are responsible for the discovery of sixteen elements, including berkelium, californium, and seaborgium, named after Nobel laureate, department chair, and alumnus Glenn Seaborg.

[5] Today, the College comprises one of the largest chemistry programs in the nation, with a faculty of 96 professors, researchers, and lecturers and an enrollment of 963 undergraduate, 539 postgraduate, and 123 postdoctoral students.

[2][6] The College occupies a complex of six buildings on the northeastern corner of the Berkeley campus.

Completed in 1917, Gilman Hall, where plutonium was identified in 1941, is the oldest of the buildings.