Francine Agboussou-Niedercorn

Francine Agbossou-Niedercorn was born in Bouzonville, France.

She completed a graduate work with Bertrand Castro in 1980 on metalloporphyrins at the University of Nancy. Then, in 1981, she obtained a permanent position with the « Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique » (CNRS) at the « Institut de Recherches sur la Catalyse » in Villeurbanne. She received her PhD degree in 1985 with Igor Tkatchenko on metalloporphyrins. Right after, she moved to the « Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination du CNRS » in Toulouse to work on homogeneous catalysis.

From 1988 to 1989, she spent 18 months with the group of John Gladysz at the University of Utah (USA) as a postdoctoral fellow.

In 1991, she moved to the « Laboratoire de Catalyse Hétérogène et Homogène du CNRS » directed by Jean-Pierre Bonnelle and joined the group of Francis Petit to develop research in asymmetric catalysis.

Francine Agbossou-Niedercorn is currently Director of Research at the CNRS. She is at the head of the research group « Enantioselective Catalysis and Therapeutic Molecules » of the research unit of Catalysis and Solid State Chemistry (UCCS UMR 8181) located at the « Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Lille » at the University of Lille 1 (USTL).

Her current interests focus on: Design of chiral auxiliaries and use in asymmetric catalysis, Ionic liquids for asymmetric catalysis, Asymmetric synthesis of key intermediates, Asymmetric hydrogenation, hydroformylation, allylation, silylcyanation and other C-C bond formations, Quaternary chiral compounds, and Computational chemistry.