Jacques Mering

Jacques Mering (3 January 1904–29 March 1973) was a Lithuanian-born, naturalised French engineer,

Mering earned a Diplôme d'Ingénieur en Génie Electrique (Engineering Degree in Electrical Engineering) from École Spéciale des Travaux Publics in Paris in 1925, and Licencié de Sciences (BSc) from Faculté des sciences in Paris in 1928. He rose to become director of research at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS; France's National Centre for Scientific Research) in Paris; subsequently, in 1969, Mering founded and, until his death, directed the CNRS Centre de Recherche sur les Solides à Organisation Cristalline Imparfaite (Research Center on Solids with Imperfect Crystalline Organization), in Orléans, France. Mering is also remembered for his formative influence on the British physical chemist Rosalind Franklin, whom he trained in X-ray crystallography in Paris, and who, until her untimely death, produced DNA crystallographic data of exquisite quality.

Early life and education Jacques Mering was born on 3 January 1904 to a Lithuanian Jewish ("Litvak") family in Vilkaviškis, Lithuania, then within the Russian Empire. He returned to Paris after the war in 1945. In 1959 he became director of research at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and in 1969, director of the CNRS Centre de Recherche sur les Solides à Organization Cristalline Imparfaite (Research Center on Solids with Imperfect Crystalline Organization) in Orléans, France (where he was succeeded after his death by Jose J. Fripia).

Awards and recognitions Mering was a founding member and then President (1956–1958) of Groupe Français des Argiles. He was also president of the Groupe Français d'Etude des Carbones, and of the Association Française de Cristallographie. At the time of his death, he was Vice-Président of the Société Française de Minéralogie et Cristallographie, and he was an elected member of The Clay Minerals Society in the U.S.

Personal life

Mering was known to be a strictly principled individual when it came to academic ethics. He never demanded co-authorship in publications of theses of his own students, despite it being a tradition in France at the time. Moreover, he never published with more than three co-authors, one of them would be an external collaborator if there were three, this despite his laboratory being at capacity in terms of numbers of researchers. His work ethic was noted to be demanding, but during breaks he allowed great liberty—in addition to discussing their scientific work, researchers were encouraged to develop friendships, share coffee and meals, go for outings, and to discuss politics and social issues.

In his private life, Mering had his own frivolities. Separated but not divorced from his wife,

Mering died on 29 March 1973 (in his 70th year), after several months of illness,