Alain Fuchs


Alain Fuchs is a Swiss-born French Doctor of Science and chemistry Professor, specialized in molecular simulation. He is also university administrator. He served as the president of Chimie ParisTech from 2006 to 2010. He has served as the president of the French National Centre for Scientific Research from 2010 to 2017. He became an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 2014.
Since 24 October 2017, he is president of PSL Research University.

Biography

Alain Fuchs graduated as a Chemical engineer at EPFL. In 1983, he became a doctor in Physical Chemistry at Université Paris-Sud; his dissertation was “Cristaux vitreux et transition vitreuse”. He was also a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh.

Career

Alain Fuchs joined CNRS in 1985 as a research fellow. He became a research director in 1991. In 1995, he became chemistry professor at Université Paris-Sud. Between 2000 and 2005, he set up and directed the Laboratory of Physic Chemistry at Campus d'Orsay. He also worked as the President of the agrégation in chemistry from 1998 to 2001 and he directed the Section 13 of the Comité national de la recherche scientifique between 2004 and 2008. He was also Professor at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in thermodynamics and statistical thermodynamics, intermolecular and surface forces, molecular simulation techniques, history of chemistry and physical chemistry. He served as the president of Chimie ParisTech from 2006 to 2010.
In January 2010, he was appointed President of the CNRS, succeeding Catherine Bréchignac d'Arnold Migus. Fuchs’s mandate ended in 2014. After holding the position in interim for one month], he was appointed again by the Ministry of Higher Education.
In October 2017, Fuchs quit the position of CNRS President and became the President of Université PSL.

Fields of research

His research activity is dedicated to the theory, modelling and molecular thermodynamics of fluids confined in various types of porous materials modeling and molecular simulation of confined fluids. “Forced intrusion of water and aqueous solutions in microporous materials: from fundamental thermodynamics to energy storage devices” or “On the use of the IAST method for gas separation studies in porous materials with gate-opening behavior” are part of his last recent and major publications.
Alain Fuchs is a member of the Academia Europaea and he was a member of the editorial board of the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.
He co-authored two books: