Pierre Braunstein

Pierre Braunstein (born 4 October 1947) is a French chemist. He was director of the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination (Coordination Chemistry Laboratory, CNRS-Université de Strasbourg) of Strasbourg (France) and is a member of the French Academy of Sciences.

Biography He graduated from the École nationale supérieure de chimie de Mulhouse (with rank #1) in 1969 and then obtained his doctorate (Dr.Ing.) (under the supervision of J. Dehand) in inorganic chemistry from the Université Louis Pasteur (ULP) in Strasbourg in 1971. He spent the academic year 1971/72 as a post-doctoral fellow at University College London, with Professors Sir Ronald S. Nyholm and Robin J.H. Clark. After defending his state doctorate thesis at the ULP in 1974, he was awarded an Alexander-von-Humboldt fellowship to spend the academic year (1974/75) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) with Professor Ernst Otto Fischer (Nobel Prize laureate).

He spent his entire career at the CNRS where he became an exceptional class Research Director. He has been Director of Research Emeritus since September 2014 and is also a professor "conventionné" at the University of Strasbourg.

Scientific research His research focuses on the inorganic and organometallic chemistry of the transition metals and the main group elements, where he has (co-)authored of more than 580 scientific publications and review articles. They cover impressively diverse areas ranging from the study of metal-metal-bonded complexes, (hetero)nuclear complexes and atomic aggregates, multisite activation of organic substrates, heterometallic clusters with metallophilic interactions between metal ions with complete electronic shells, functional and hemilable ligands (with donor atoms N, P, O, S, N-heterocyclic carbenes...) phosphinoenolate complexes, the activation of CO2 and organic isocyanates and their catalytic recovery, silylated ligands in a heterobimetallic environment, the study of original quinonoid zwitterions with delocalized organic π systems, which promote electronic communication between metal centres, and allow the modification of the electronic properties of the surfaces on which they are deposited. The applications of his work range from various homogeneous catalysis reactions, including the dehydrogenating coupling of stannanes, H-transfer reactions and ethylene oligomerization, to the first use of bimetallic nanoparticles derived from molecular clusters in heterogeneous catalysis.

He has given more than 480 plenary lectures and invited guests to international conferences and institutions and has received numerous awards and honours from France, Germany, China, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. He holds or has held many editorial positions and is regularly called upon to participate in the evaluation of major foreign research programs.

Pierre Braunstein has mentored countless young scientists including ca. 70 PhD students and an equal number of post-doctoral researchers.

He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, a corresponding member of the Zaragoza Academy of Sciences (Spain) and the Lisbon Academy of Sciences (Portugal). He is also a member of the Academia Europaea and the European Academy of Sciences. Since 2015, he is head of the Chemical Sciences Division of the European Academy of Sciences.

Distinctions

Prizes

Prize of the Division of Physical and Mineral Chemistry of the French Chemical Society 1975 Aumale Prize of the French Institute on the proposal of the French Academy of Sciences, 1983 Alexander-von-Humboldt Forschungspreis, 1988 Silver medal of the CNRS, 1989 Max-Planck Forschungspreis (jointly with H. Vahrenkamp, Germany), 1991 Raymond Beer Grand Prize of the French Chemical Society 1995 1st winner of the Paul Sabatier - Miguel Catalán Franco-Spanish Prize between the French Chemical Society and the Royal Spanish Chemical Society, 1998 Grignard - Georg Wittig Prize between the French Chemical Society and the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, 1999 Otto-Warburg Prize (Germany) 2002 Visiting Professor at the Academia Sinica Taipei, Taipei (Taiwan), 2002 Grand Prize of the French Institute of Petroleum (IFPEN) of the French Academy of Sciences, 2004 Descartes-Huygens Prize (Dutch Academy of Sciences), 2008 International Prize of the Japanese Society of Coordination Chemistry, 2013 Prize of the International Foundation for Organic Chemistry (Kyoto, Japan), 2013 Pierre Süe Grand Prize of the French Chemical Sociéty, 2013 Sacconi Medal (Italian Chemical Society), 2013 1st Awardee of the Portugal-France Chemistry Bilateral Lectureship Award between the Sociedade Portuguesa de Química and the French Chemical Society, 2019 China-France Chemistry Bilateral Lectureship Award between the Chinese Chemical Society and the French Chemical Society, 2020 European Prize for Organometallic Chemistry of the European Chemical Society (EuChemS), Division of Organometallic Chemistry, 2021

Honours

Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Konstanz (Germany), 1984 1st Great Manchester Inorganic Chemistry Conference - UMIST - Manchester (United Kingdom), 1985 Weissberger Williams Lecture - Kodak Research Laboratories - Rochester (United States), 1986 John van Geuns Lecture, Amsterdam (Netherlands), 1993 Fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science - Tokyo, Japan, 1997 Chini Memorial Lecture (Italian Chemical Society), 2003 Nyholm Lecture and Medal (Royal Society of Chemistry), 2003 Molecular Science Forum Lecture Professorship, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, 2006 Distinguished Visiting Scientist, Institute of Materials and Engineering. A*STAR, Singapore, 2013-2017 Named "Technische Universität Munich (TUM) Ambassador" (1st promotion), 2013 Elected Head of the Chemistry Division of the European Academy of Sciences, 2015 Visiting Professor at Qingdao University of Science and Technology, China, 2016 - 2019 Qiushi Chair Professor of the University of Zhejiang, China, 2017- 2019 Professor Chair at Suzhou University (China), 2017-2020 Appointed Academic "Master" of the "111Project" Rubber-Plastics Materials and Engineering Overseas Expertise Introduction Center for Discipline Innovation, Qingdao University of Science en Technology, China, 2017-2022 Distinguish Honorary Professor at Yangzhou University (China), 2018-2022. Distinguished Visiting Scholar, University of Hong-Kong, 2018 “Tongji Master Lecture”, Tongji University (China), 2019 Distinguished professor, Zhejiang University (China), 2019-2024

Learned Societies - Academies

Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (CChem FRSC), 1996 Membre correspondant of the French Academy of Sciences, 1993 Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Zaragoza (Spain), 2002 Member of the Academia Europaea, 2002 Member of the European Academy of Sciences, 2002 Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, 2005 Member of the French Academy of Sciences, 2005 Distinguished member of the French Chemical Society (1st promotion), 2013 Foreign corresponding member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences (Portugal), 2015

Decorations

Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. He was made Chevallier by decree of July 13, 2009. Officier of the Ordre national du Mérite. He was made "Officier" by decree of May 2, 2017 for 44 years of service.