Prof. Jean-Pierre GILSON

Distinguished Professor (PR EX), Laboratory of Catalysis and Spectrochemistry (LCS), ENSICAEN, Normandy University, Caen, France

Jean-Pierre received his PhD in physical chemistry at the University of Namur (Belgium) under the guidance of Profs. Eric Derouane and Zélimir Gabelica.

He started an industrial career in the US (UOP and Grace) and Europe (Shell in The Netherlands and France) in the design, characterization, evaluation and commercial deployment of heterogeneous catalytic processes. After 15 years in industry, he moved to academia as a Professor of Physical Chemistry at ENSICAEN and joined the LCS to develop his research. As a professor he designed a new curriculum at ENSICAEN (Catalytic Processes for the Energy and Environment). He was the LCS Director for three four-years terms and the laboratory received the highest mark, A⁺, at the end of his last mandate. He expanded the scope of the LCS by adding new spectroscopic techniques (solid state NMR, Raman, UV-VIS) and a now large group dedicated to the preparation, characterization and application of nanoporous materials.

He also spent 4 years in the downstream R&D of Total (now TotalEnergies) as Director of their external research cooperations. He was awarded with Dr. Nesterenko (TotalEnergies) the Industrial Chair “NanaoCleanEnergy” to investigate new routes to separate and upgrade natural gas within the Energy and Materials transition. Jean-Pierre is a strong believer in industry-academia cooperation where fundamental academic research helps industry to solve current and future energy challenges. In particular his focus is on evaluating catalytic performances of modified zeolites either as pure powders or shaped technical bodies. Jean-Pierre is also an invited Professor in China (Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Dalian and Jilin University, Changchun). He holds 50⁺ patent families, developed 3 successful catalysts in oil refining and petrochemicals, and published 100⁺ peer reviewed papers.