Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths, Volume 57

Vitalij Pecharsky works at Iowa State University, USA.

J.-C. Bünzli was educated as a physico-chemical inorganic chemist (BSc and PhD at EPFL; postdocs at UBC, Canada and ETH Zürich). He started to work on lanthanide coordination chemistry in 1975 at the University of Lausanne and was promoted full professor in 1980. In 2001 he transferred to EPFL where he founded the Laboratory of Lanthanide Supramolecular Chemistry. After studying the solvation of lanthanide ions by innovative experimental techniques, he turned to macrocyclic and supramolecular chemistry, focusing on self-assembly processes. In parallel he kept interest in the relationship between luminescence and structure, developing several luminescent materials, including ionic liquids, liquid crystals, and nanoparticles. All this led to the design of rugged and sensitive luminescent bioprobes for the detection of markers expressed by cancerous cells and tissues. Lately he has expanded this aspect of his research by collaborating with several groups in Australia and China. Selected as World Class University professor at Korea University during 2009-2013, he has since been working at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, UTS (Sydney), HKBU (Hong Kong), and SUSTech (Shenzhen). He has also been invited professor at ten different universities in China, Japan, France, Belgium, and the U.K. He has been elected dean of the Faculty of Science (1990-1991) and Vice-president of the University of Lausanne (1991-1995) and as such implemented the Erasmus program in Switzerland. He also acted as expert on several review committees in China, France, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Italy, Finland, UK, and USA. He is the founder (1989) and president of the European Rare Earth and Actinide Society and co-editor of the Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths. He has published 330 WOS papers (>27 300 cites, h factor =78).