Established in 1957, Stony Brook is New York State's comprehensive University Center for the downstate metropolitan area. The university consists of 123 buildings (campus map) on 1,100 acres, with a faculty of 1,550 and a student body of 22,000.

Stony Brook is recognized as one of the nation's finest universities, offering excellent programs in a broad spectrum of academic subjects and conducting major research and public service projects. Over the past decade, externally funded support for Stony Brook's research programs has grown faster than at almost any other university, supporting its claim of being the major research campus in the nation's largest public university system. The annual sponsored research budget at Stony Brook is approximately $170 million, of which about $7.5 million is raised by Chemistry faculty through state, federal, and industrial research grants. Stony Brook now ranks among the top 25 institutions receiving funding from the National Science Foundation.

Stony Brook's bustling academic community is situated amid fields and woodland. Bicycle paths, an apple orchard, park benches, a duck pond, a 26-acre nature preserve, and spacious plazas complement modern laboratories and classroom buildings (campus tour). The Staller Center for the Arts offers a year-round program of concerts and recitals, theatre performances, art exhibits, and other events open to the public, giving Stony Brook spirit and cultural vitality.

Library and computing facilities at Stony Brook are excellent. With a total of 1.7 million bound volumes and an additional 3 million items in microformat, the Frank Melville, Jr. Memorial Library, the Health Sciences Library, and several specialized branch science libraries rank among the top in the nation. Students have access to instructional and research computing facilities through the departmental and university computing centers. They provide general services involving mainframe and networked microcomputing.

One of the most recent campus buildings is the Centers for Molecular Medicine, which houses among other research centers, the Center for Structural Biology in which the Chemistry Department is a participant..

Encircling the academic core are six residential quadrangles with living space for about 1,000 students each. The Chapin Apartment Complex, with one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, is adjacent to the Health Sciences Center, and the Schomburg Apartment Complex on West Campus consists of one- and four-bedroom apartments. Each of these complexes houses graduate and married undergraduate students.

South of the academic core is the Marine Sciences Research Center, the center for research, graduate education, and public service in the marine sciences in the State University of New York system. Adjacent to the center is the School of Dental Medicine. University Medical Center and the Health Sciences Center are located on a 200-acre site proximate to the academic core.