Anne M Baranger

Anne Michelle Baranger is an American chemist who is professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the interim dean for the College of Chemistry. Her research considers the experiences of chemistry students and ways to increase the number of students studying STEM subjects.

Education Baranger was an undergraduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she majored in chemistry. She moved to the University of California, Berkeley for graduate studies, where she completed a doctorate in inorganic chemistry, working under the supervision of Robert Bergman.

Career Baranger joined the faculty at the Wesleyan University in 1996. At UIUC, Baranger was affiliated with the Biochemistry Department (in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, MCB ) and the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, to continue research work focused on "understanding, controlling, and modifying processes involving RNA", and she was made associate head of the Department of Chemistry. Baranger was appointed as a UIUC Chancellors Fellow in 2010, to begin work on that university's I-STEM Education Initiative, where the aim was to "develop a method for the evaluation of STEM departments" (with Chemistry being the prototype department), and to establish a STEM task force campus-wide "to establish a better flow of information and collaboration between... STEM units" at that university. In 2025 she became the interim dean for the College of Chemistry. She is the first woman to serve in this role.

Chemistry education research In addition to the early research on the biochemistry and biophysics of RNA, Baranger's research moved in the direction of chemical education, where it has addressed chemistry education and the development of evidence-based educational practices, including examining representation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, the experience of chemistry majors, integration of green chemistry in laboratory instruction, and strategies to improve the chemistry education in general.

Awards and honors 2002 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship 2015 American Chemical Society Committee on Environmental Improvement Award 2016 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Foundation Fellowship

Selected publications