ACS and French Chemical Society jointly award inaugural Franco-American Lectureship Prize

In April, ACS welcomed French chemist Marie-Paule Pileni to the U.S. to kick off the inaugural Franco-American Lectureship Prize, established in 2016 by ACS and the French Chemical Society to honor the close research ties between the U.S. and France.

Pileni, who received the inaugural prize in 2017, is Emeritus Distinguished Physical Chemistry Professor at Sorbonne University. She is also a senior researcher of the French Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission.

Pileni has collaborated extensively with chemists from across the U.S., and she has served as an adjunct professor of chemistry at Georgia Tech. As part of her award tour organized by ACS International Activities, Pileni presented a talk, “Nanocrystals, Nanocrystallinity, Supracrystals: Unexpected Behavior” at ACS local section meetings in Atlanta and Houston and at Columbia University in New York. Pileni also delivered talks and visited labs at Rice University and Georgia Tech.

“I really enjoyed delivering these lectures at top institutions and with ACS local sections across the country,” Pileni says. “I highly appreciated the warm welcome I received. The award provided me the opportunity to not only meet chemists I already knew, but also new members of the academic community. Collaborations are under way.”

Pileni, a commander in the French Legion of Honor, received praise from the government of France. The consul general of France in Houston, Alexis Andres, invited Pileni for a reception in her honor at the consulate to recognize her contributions to the Franco-American research landscape.

ACS and the French Chemical Society will alternate years in selecting the winner. Nominations for the 2019 lecture prize will open in June. For more information, visit www.acs.org/international.