Biography

Nick Serpone obtained his Ph.D. in Physical-Inorganic Chemistry at Cornell University (1964–1968; Ithaca, NY), after which he joined Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) in 1968 as Assistant Professor, was made Associate Professor in 1973, Professor in 1980, University Research Professor (1998–2004) and Professor Emeritus in 2000. He was a Consultant for the 3M Company (St. Paul, Minnesota, USA; 1986-1996), and a Program Director in the Chemistry Division of the U.S. National Science Foundation (Washington, DC; 1998–2001). He has been a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Bologna (1975-1976), a Visiting Scholar at Boston University (summers 1977, 1978), a Visiting Scientist at the Chemistry Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory (Upton, NY; summers 1979, 1980), a Professeur Invite at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Suisse, 1983-1984), a CNRS Research Director at The Ecole Centrale de Lyon (France, 1990-1991), a Visiting Professor at the University of Ferrara (Italy, 1997-1998), a Visiting Professor at the University of Pavia (Italy, since 2002), and a Visiting Professor at the Tokyo University of Science, Noda Campus (Japan; July–August 2008).

His major research interests are in the photophysics and photochemistry of semiconductor metal oxides, heterogeneous photocatalysis, environmental photochemistry, photochemistry of sunscreen active agents, and application of microwaves to nanomaterials, organic syntheses and to environmental remediation. To date, he has co-authored over 515 articles and co-authored/co-edited 17 monographs, among which is a Textbook of General Chemistry for advanced undergraduates. He has co-authored a book with Prof. Vincenzo Balzani (Professor Emeritus, University of Bologna) and Dr. Nicola Armaroli (CNR, Bologna) titled "Powering Planet Earth - Energy solutions for the future" (Wiley-VCH, 2013) and translated the book "Chemistry – reading and writing the book of Nature" (Royal Society of Chemistry) by Vincenzo Balzani and Margherita Venturi (University of Bologna).

In July 2010, he was elected a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc, Belgium) and served as the Head of its Materials Science Division from 2014 to 2020.

Contacts