Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths

Vitalij Pecharsky works at Iowa State University, USA. Jean-Claude Bünzli (he/him) is an Honorary Professor emeritus at the EPFL where he founded the Laboratory of Lanthanide Supramolecular Chemistry He earned a degree in chemical engineering in 1968 and a PhD in 1971 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL). After two years at the University of British Columbia as a teaching postdoctoral fellow (photoelectron spectroscopy) and one year at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (physical organic chemistry) he was appointed in 1974 as assistant-professor at the University of Lausanne. He launched a research program on the coordination and spectroscopic properties of f-elements and was promoted to full professor of inorganic and analytical chemistry in 1980. During 2009-2013 he was also a World Class University professor at Korea University (South Korea) at the WCU Center for Next Generation Photovoltaic Devices. In 2016, he has been appointed as adjunct professor at the Haimen Institute of Science and Technology (Haimen, Jiangsu, P.R. China) which is a satellite campus of Hong Kong Baptist University. His research interests deal with various aspects of luminescent lanthanide coordination and supramolecular compounds, developing luminescent bioprobes and bioconjugates for the detection of cancerous cells with time-resolved microscopy as well as luminescent materials for various photonic applications, including solar energy conversion. In 1989, he founded the European Rare Earths and Actinide Society which coordinates international conferences in the field and for which he is presently acting as president.