Biography

Professor Jean J. M. Fréchet is Vice President for Research at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. Born in France, Jean Fréchet received his first university degree from the Institut de Chimie et Physique Industrielles (now CPE) in Lyon, France. He then completed his doctoral studies in organic and polymer chemistry at the College of Forestry, State University of New York and Syracuse University.

He joined the Chemistry Faculty at the University of Ottawa in Canada in 1973 and remained there until 1987 when he became IBM Professor of Polymer Chemistry at Cornell University. In 1995, he was named the Peter J. Debye Chair of Chemistry at Cornell. In 1997, Professor Fréchet joined the Chemistry Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley and was named the Henry Rapoport Chair of Organic Chemistry in 2003 and Professor of Chemical Engineering in 2005. In addition, Professor Fréchet served as a principal investigator in the Materials Science Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as the Scientific Director of the Organic and Macromolecular Facility for the Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Jean Fréchet has published nearly 900 scientific papers in scholarly journals and has been awarded more than 70 United States patents. At the interface between organic and polymer chemistry, his research is in the broad area of nanoscience and nanotechnology; it is directed towards functional macromolecules and their design, synthesis, and applications.

Professor Fréchet’s recent research includes new synthetic approaches to macromolecules with controlled architectures; engineered polymer systems and molecular machines; the design, synthesis, and applications of dendritic and other functional polymers; novel materials for directed nanoscale patterning and growth; energy harvesting and conversion; organic electronics; bioinspired catalysis with synthetic macromolecules; polymers in separation and molecular recognition; and functional macromolecules for targeted drug delivery, diagnostics, and immunotherapy.