Francois N. Diederich
ETH Zurich
September 7, 1952 - September 23, 2020
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Scientific Discipline: Chemistry Membership Type:
International Member
(elected 2012)
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François Diederich was Professor of Organic Chemistry at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland. He was known for his physical-organic chemistry work, on one hand deciphering molecular recognition principles and quantifying weak intermolecular interactions in chemical and biological systems and on the other, preparing and studying carbon-rich molecular materials based on fullerene and new acetylene chemistry. Diederich was born in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, in 1952 and holds citizenship from both Luxembourg and Switzerland. Following his high school education in Luxembourg, he studied chemistry at the University of Heidelberg, where he also received his doctorate in 1979. After postdoctoral study at UCLA, he was a research associate at the Max-Planck-Institute for medical research in Heidelberg until 1985, when he joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA as an associate professor (1985-1989) and as a full professor (1989-1992). Since April 1992, he was a Professor of Organic Chemistry at ETH Zurich, where he served as head of the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences. Since 2004, he was the Chairman of the Editorial Board of Angewandte Chemie.
