Brief Introduction

Professor Pierre Braunstein received his Dr. Ing. Degree in Inorganic Chemistry in 1971 from the University Louis Pasteur Strasbourg (France); then spent a year at University College London, with Profs. R. S. Nyholm and R. J. H. Clark as a Royal Society/CNRS post--‐doctoral fellow; received his State Doctorate from the University Louis Pasteur Strasbourg in 1974 and then went to the Technical University Munich with Prof. E. O. Fischer (Nobel Laureate) as a Alexander--‐von--‐Humboldt post--doctoral fellow. He became Research Director Exceptional Class within the CNRS, and is Emeritus Research Director since Sept. 2014 (Coordination Chemistry Laboratory, Institute of Chemistry, UMR 7177 CNRS).

His broad research interests lie in the inorganic and organometallic chemistry of the transition and main group elements, where he has (co)authored over 550 scientific publications and review articles. They cover the study of metal--‐metal bonded (hetero)dinuclear and cluster complexes, coordination clusters, of functional and hemilabile ligands (N, P, O, NHC donors, …), of quinonoid zwitterions with delocalized organic π-systems, suitable for electronic communication, and their deposition as thin films. Applications range from homogeneous catalysis, e.g. ethylene oligomerization, to cluster--‐derived nanoparticles for heterogeneous catalysis and nanosciences.