Speaker Bio

Chemical engineer and scientist, Gauthier Deblonde is a staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL; https://people.llnl.gov/deblonde1). He does research within LLNL’s Chemical and Nuclear Science division and he is a member of LLNL’s Glenn T. Seaborg Institute. After obtaining an engineering diploma in chemical sciences and a Master’s degree in the chemistry of the nuclear fuel cycle (PLS University, Chimie ParisTech 2012), he continued his studies with a PhD in physical chemistry at the University Pierre and Marie Curie (Paris). He then moved to California to develop his research in radiochemistry at Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory (postdoc 2016-2019) and then at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His current research at LLNL focuses on the interactions between metal ions and chelators (natural small molecules, polyoxometalates, synthetic ligands, or macromolecules such as peptides and proteins) with implications spanning from separation technologies to medical applications, fundamental science on actinides and lanthanides, strategic metal mining, and the behavior of heavy metals in the environment.