Anne-Sophie Chauvin

Mission

Anne-Sophie Chauvin is involved in the fields of chemistry, and supramolecular chemistry, especially with f elements, with a focus on developing novel coordination polymers with actinides and exploring luminescence properties with lanthanides for biological and technological applications (such as invisible inks).  

She is teaching General and Analytical Chemistry to first-year Pharmacy and Biology students at UNIL, and overseeing practical sessions for students in chemistry, pharmacy, and biology. 

She is elected at the FSB Faculty Council and was member of the EPFL Assembly (AE) for 6 years, until 2018. She was member of the Management committee of the Cost CM 1006 action entitled Eufen: European F-Element Network and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). She is Member of the Swiss Chemical Society (SCS). 

Biography

Anne-Sophie Chauvin began her academic journey at the University Paris V-René Descartes in France, where she earned her PhD in bioinorganic chemistry, focusing on mimetic complexes of Nitrile Hydratase's active site under the guidance of Prof. Jean-Claude Chottard. After completing a postdoctoral stay at the University of Geneva with Prof. Alexandre Alexakis, where she researched the determination of the absolute configuration of chiral alcohols, she continued her work in supramolecular chemistry in Prof. Jean-Claude G. Bünzli’s group. Here, her research centered on designing ligands that form water-soluble complexes with luminescent lanthanides for biological applications. She was appointed part-time lecturer in 2001, and in 2006, she obtained the habilitation to direct research (HDR) from the University René Descartes. In 2007, she became Maître d'Enseignement et de Recherche at EPFL. Her later research interests have included photovoltaics and organic dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) at the Laboratory for Photonics and Interfaces (LPI) headed by Pr. Michaël Graëtzel, as well as developing invisible inks based on lanthanide complexes. Since 2014, with the arrival of Dr Marinella Mazzanti at EPFL she has returned to studying lanthanide and actinide chemistry, focusing on luminescence and coordination polymers involving actinides (U(IV), U(V), Th(IV)). In March 2025, she joined the group of Kay Severin to further her work in supramolecular chemistry.