Bernadette Charleux is a French polymer chemist. 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 Europe ...

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 annually distinguishes 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.

Scientific work

Bernadette Charleux first worked on emulsion polymerization, which led to the creation of new materials : functional

latex Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latices are found in nature, but synthetic latices are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a wikt:milky, milky fluid, which is present in 10% of all floweri ...

es, amphiphilic copolymers, etc. before turning to pioneering research on

Reversible-deactivation radical polymerization In polymer chemistry, 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 ...

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 ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

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

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

(2011) * Société chimique de France 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 Knights of the Legion of Honour Members of Academia Europaea Year of birth missing (living people) Living people