Nathalie Demassieux

Nathalie Demassieux, née Filatoff (25 August 1884 – 19 May 1961), was a Russian-born French chemist and academic who specialised in mineral chemistry. She is remembered for investigating complex halogenated salts of lead and the dehydration of double sulfates, publishing numerous papers in the 1930s. After Irène Joliot-Curie and Pauline Ramart, Demassieux was the third woman to obtain a position as a lecturer (maître de conférences) in a French university. In tribute to her legacy with the Faculty of Sciences of Paris, the Nathalie Demassieux scientific prize was awarded for many years by the Chancellery of the Universities of Paris. Early life and education Nathalie Filatoff was born 25 August 1884 in Savenkovo, a small village in Tula Oblast, Russia. Her parents were Wladimir Filatoff, a Russian minor nobleman, and Marine Guelariev, whose father was Polish and whose mother, Adeline Louvier de Balmont, was French. Nathalie Filatoff emigrated to France in 1901 with her brother, Vsevolod Filatoff. They studied together during the school year 1902–1903 at the École pratique des hautes études, section of philological and historical sciences.

Nathalie Filatoff continued her studies at the Sorbonne, where she earned the certificate of higher studies in mineralogy in 1909, the certificate of higher studies in preparatory mathematics in 1910 (one of three women out of 47 candidates), and the certificate of higher studies in general physics in 1912.

She changed her name to Nathalie Demassieux after marrying Louis Demassieux, a professor of chemistry, on 26 August 1909. Her husband was killed on 24 August 1914 near Noërs in the Battle of the Frontiers, during World War I. From 1916 to 1919, Nathalie Demassieux was an auxiliary teacher of mineral chemistry and applied chemistry certificates. After becoming a war widow, she taught chemistry at the technical school from 1919 to 1923.

In 1928, she was a chemistry assistant at the Sorbonne when the French Academy of Sciences chose her for the Auguste Cahours prize, for which she received 3,000 francs, "awarded as an encouragement to young people who have already made themselves known by some interesting work and more particularly by research on chemistry". Her work had centred on the equilibrium between lead chloride and various other chlorides.

In 1930, Demassieux obtained a position as a lecturer at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Caen, becoming only the third woman to obtain a position as a lecturer at a French university, after the chemists Irène Joliot-Curie (Nobel laureate in Chemistry) and Pauline Ramart (who rose to become chair of organic chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences of Paris from 1935 to her death in 1953).

Concerned with popularisation and feminism, she gave lectures, including one on Louis Pasteur given in 1923 during the general assembly of the League for Women's Rights. She was a member of the Ligue Française pour le Droit des Femmes and the Association française pour l'avancement des sciences. She was also active in Soroptimist France, an international network for the promotion of women's professional values.

Nathalie Demassieux Award Demassieux was a dedicated researcher throughout her life, directing her doctoral students and publishing more than 30 articles and papers. She became very attached to the Sorbonne laboratory where she spent many hours. As a result, she bequeathed part of her estate to the Faculty of Sciences of Paris in 1959, and this, in turn, led the Chancellery of the Universities of Paris to create the Prix Nathalie Demassieux, later known as the Prix Thiessé de Rosemont / Demassieux. The prize was awarded annually until 2018. 1990: Elyès Jouini 1993: Anne Boutin 1998: Cécile Murat

Selected publications Demassieux, Nathalie: Étude de l’équilibre entre le Chlorure de Plomb et le Chlorhydrate d’Ammoniac en solution aqueuse, Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences, volume 156, 1913, p. 892 Demassieux, Nathalie: Étude de l’équilibre entre le Chlorure de Plomb et le Chlorure d’Ammonium en solution aqueuse|périodique, Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des Sciences, 158, 1914, p. 702 Nathalie Demassieux, Étude de l’équilibre entre l’Iodure et les Iodures de Potassium et d’Ammonium – entre le Chlorure et l’Iodure de Plomb et quelques Chlorures et Iodures alcalins en solution aqueuse (Study of the equilibrium between Potassium and Ammonium Iodide and Iodide - between Lead Chloride and Iodide and some Alkali Chlorides and Iodides in aqueous solution), Ann. de Chimie, vol. 177, 1923, p. 51 Demassieux Nathalie: Action de l’acide oxalique sur quelques sels solubles de Plomb (Action of oxalic acid on some soluble lead salts), C. R. Acad. Sc., vol. 185, 1927, p. 460 Demassieux, Nathalie and Heyrovsky, J. Reduction of some complex salts at the dropping mercury cathode, Vestnik IV, Pragues, 1928 Demassieux, Nathalie: Action des carbonates alcalins sur le bromure, l'iodure et le nitrate de plomb, sur le Chlorure de Plomb, en solution aqueuse (Action of alkaline carbonates on lead bromide, iodide and nitrate, on lead chloride, in aqueous solution), C. R. Acad. Sc., vol. 189, 1929, p. 333 et 428 Demassieux, Nathalie: Action des oxalates alcalins sur les sels halogénés de Plomb (Action of alkaline oxalates on halogenated lead salts), C. R. Acad. Sc., vol. 189, 1929, p. 535 Demassieux, Nathalie and Heyrovsky, J,: Etude de quelques complexes par la méthode polarographique (Study of some complexes by the polarographic method), Bull. Soc. Chimie, vol. 45-46, 1929, p. 30 Demassieux, Nathalie: Contribution à l’étude du chrome trivalent (Contribution to the study of trivalent chromium), Jour. Soc. Chim. Phys., vol. 26, 1929, p. 219