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. A division of chemical engineering was formed in 1946, becoming a department in 1957. The department of chemical engineering changed its name to chemical and biomolecular engineering in 2010 to reflect the widening research interests of its faculty.
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.