Bernadette Charleux is a French

polymer chemist A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic and ...

. She is a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

and a senior member of the

Institut universitaire de France The Institut Universitaire de France (IUF, Academic Institute of France), is a service of the French Ministry of Higher Education that distinguishes each year a small number of university professors for their research excellence, as evidenced by t ...

since 2009. Since 2012, she is the Deputy Vice-president of Research and Development at

Saint-Gobain Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. () is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris and headquartered on the outskirts of Paris, at La Défense and in Courbevoie. Originally a mirror manufacturer, it now also produces a variety of ...

Scientific work

Bernadette Charleux first worked on

emulsion polymerization Emulsion polymerization is a type of radical polymerization that usually starts with an emulsion incorporating water, monomer, and surfactant. The most common type of emulsion polymerization is an oil-in-water emulsion, in which droplets of monomer ...

, which led to the creation of new materials : functional

latex Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...

es,

amphiphilic An amphiphile (from the Greek αμφις amphis, both, and φιλíα philia, love, friendship), or amphipath, is a chemical compound possessing both hydrophilic (''water-loving'', polar) and lipophilic (''fat-loving'') properties. Such a compoun ...

copolymers, etc. before turning to pioneering research on

Reversible-deactivation radical polymerization Reversible deactivation radical polymerizations (RDRPs) are members of the class of reversible deactivation polymerizations which exhibit much of the character of living polymerizations, but cannot be categorized as such as they are not without cha ...

in aqueous media. More recently, she has worked on the creation of nano-objects via the

self-assembly Self-assembly is a process in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction. When the ...

of macromolecules. This work has led to numerous patents.

Prizes and distinctions

Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon B ...

(2013) * CNRS Silver Medal (2012) * The Prix Grammaticakis-Neuman of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...

(2011) *

Société chimique de France Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the se ...

Prize, Materials, polymers, and elastomers division (2000) * CNRS Bronze Medal (1997)

Notes and references

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Charleux, Bernadette French women chemists 21st-century French women scientists Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Members of Academia Europaea Year of birth missing (living people) Living people