Christian Amatore (born 9 December 1951 in Algeria) is a French

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

and a member 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 ...

. He is an author of works in

electrochemistry Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between electrical potential difference, as a measurable and quantitative phenomenon, and identifiable chemical change, with the potential difference as an outco ...

Biography

Coming from a modest family ( Sicilian by his father,

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

by his mother), he spent a large part of his childhood in

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

in several garrison towns of

Laghouat Laghouat ( ar, الأغواط; en, Laghwat) is the capital of the Laghouat Province, Algeria, south of the Algerian capital Algiers. Located in the Amour Range of the Saharan Atlas, the town is an oasis on the north edge of the Sahara Dese ...

, Hain-el-Adjar,

Sidi Bel Abbès Sidi Bel Abbès ( ar, سيدي بلعباس), also called Bel Abbès, is the capital (2005 pop. 200,000)''Sidi Bel Abbes'', lexicorient.com (Encyclopaedia of the Orient), internet article. of the Sidi Bel Abbès wilaya (2005 pop. 590,000), Algeria ...

where his father was an NCO of the Foreign Legion. He followed his father's advice "if you are intelligent but you have no education, you remain mute" and followed brilliant studies in Algeria and then in France where his Blackfoot family was repatriated: first to the Lycée Pascal-Paoli in Corte, then to the Lycée Thiers in Marseille where he completed two years of preparatory classes, and finally to the

École normale supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

(rue d'Ulm - Paris) where he obtained the agrégation de chimie in 1974. At the age of 18, he opted for French nationality. Following his thesis at the

University of Paris-VII Paris Diderot University, also known as Paris 7 (french: Université Paris Diderot), was a French university located in Paris, France. It was one of the inheritors of the historic University of Paris, which was split into 13 universities in 197 ...

under

Jean-Michel Savéant Jean-Michel Savéant (19 September 1933 – 16 August 2020) was a French chemist who specialized in electrochemistry. He was elected member of the French Academy of Sciences in 2000 and foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences ...

, he was recruited by

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

as a Research Associate Professor in Physical Chemistry. After this, he left for the United States for two years as Assistant Professor in an organometallic chemistry research laboratory where he met

Mark Wightman Robert Mark Wightman (born July 4, 1947) is an electrochemist and professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is best known for his work in the areas of ultramicroelectrodes, electrochemistry, and neurochemistry. ...

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...

with whom he had a pioneering role in the development of ultramicroelectrodes that he applied in artificial synapses. In 1984, he returned to France to found his laboratory at the ENS and became Director of the Chemistry Department at the ENS in 1997. He held these management functions until 2006.

Career

* Normalien (1971), agrégé de chimie (1974), docteur ès sciences (1979), docteur honoris causa from several European and Asian universities * Research Director at the

, Professor at the ENS. * Correspondent of the French Academy of Sciences in April 1996, member in November 2002. * Delegate for Education and Training of the French Academy of Sciences (2011) * Member of the steering committee of the Fondation Écologie d'Avenir.

Awards

* 2018 Fray International Sustainability Award at SIPS 2018

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amatore, Christian 1951 births Living people École Normale Supérieure alumni Academic staff of the École Normale Supérieure Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research Members of the French Academy of Sciences Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences 20th-century French chemists 21st-century French chemists