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Last Updated: 03/10/05
This is an unofficial version of the NASA version of the Astrochem lab site at http://web99.arc.nasa.gov/~astrochm/
Biographical Sketch for Dr. Chillier
Dr. Xavier CHILLIER has been a research scientist (Ames Associate) at NASA/Ames Research Center for over 2 years and returns there every summer. He studied chemistry at the University of Geneva, where he got a Ph.D. in 1994. under Professor Armand Buchs and Professor Fazil Gulacar. His subject was organic geochemistry and mass spectrometry. A part of his thesis was done at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (TN) where he stayed for a graduate work about electrospray and ion trap mass spectrometry (ES/MS/MS) under Dr. Scott A. McLuckey and Dr Gary J. Van Berkel.
In 1995-1996, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in the group of Professor Richard N. Zare, working on a project involving a microprobe laser (desorption/laser ionization in two steps) coupled with mass spectrometry (microL2MS) to analyze extraterrestrial organic matter (PAHs, Amino-Acids).
He was associated with analysis of PAHs in interstellar grains, dust and micrometeorites from Antarctica. He was also one of the co-authors of the Science paper about a possible past life on Mars (1996, Science, 273, 924-930).
In September 1996, he left Stanford for the East Coast, near Washington D.C., where he was USRA/NASA consultant at Goddard Space Flight Center, working with Dr. Louis J. Stief on kinetics of small hydrocarbons, in a Titan simulated atmosphere.
At the beginning of 1997, he joined the Astrochemistry Laboratory at Ames to work on a project of Laser Induced Fluorescence of PAHs in similar conditions as in interstellar medium with with Dr. Louis J. Allamandola and Dr. Bradley Stone .
In 1999, he went to Lyon (France) at University Claude-Bernard (Lyon 1) where he still is, working on a project about PAHs and urban pollution. He got his Habilitation and was qualified Professor by the French Ministère de l’Education Nationale.
In 2001, he left Lyon, and came back in Switzerland, where he is now lecturer at the University of Geneva. He teaches a general chemistry class for geologist and archaeologist. He continues working on the “PAHs hypothesis”.
Dr Xavier CHILLIER
Chargé de Cours
Département de chimie-physique
Sciences II/Université de Genève
30 quai E. Ansermet
CH-1211 GENEVE 4
tel. (022) 702 6525
fax: (022) 702 6518
Xavier.Chillier@chiphy.unige.ch