François Raulin was born in Poitiers, France, in 1944. He got a diploma from the Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris in 1969, and a Doctorat d'Etat (on the role of sulphur in prebiotic chemistry) from the Université Paris 6 in 1976.
He was research fellow at Carl Sagan’s Laboratory, Cornell University, in 1970-71, assistant Professor at University Paris Val de Marne until 1978 and CNRS/NSF post-doctoral fellow at Cyril Ponnamperuma’s Laboratory of Chemical Evolution, University of Maryland. Since 1985, he is Full Professor at University Paris 12, and develops his researches at LISA, Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques, in the GPCOS Group. F. Raulin was Director of LISA (1995-2005) and Director of the federation of CNRS laboratories « Groupement de Recherche » in Exobiology (1999-2006).
His scientific fields of interest are related to planetology & exo/astrobiology: studies of organic chemistry in extraterrestrial environments (Titan, giant planets, comets and Mars) using complementary approaches: laboratory experiments (experimental simulations, IR et UV spectral data, analytical techniques by GC, GC-MS and Pyr-GC-MS); theoretical modeling (using microphysics, kinetics et thermodynamics); observational data: remote sensing and in situ space exploration. F. Raulin is IDS (InterDisciplinary Scientist) of the Cassini-Huygens mission and Co-Investigator of the CIRS (Cassini), ACP and GC-MS (Huygens) experiments. He is Co.I of the COSAC and COSIMA experiments of the Rosetta European cometary mission and deputy Team leader of the MOMA experiment on ExoMars. He was Chair of COSPAR Commission F (Life Sciences), Vice Chair of COSPAR Planetary Protection Panel, 1rst Vice-President of ISSOL and Chair of the Exo/astrobiology working group of CNES. He is currently member of the Planetary Protection Working Group of ESA and President of SFE (Société Française d’Exobiologie).
He is the author of 300 scientific papers, and 9 books related to the field of the origins of Life and Exobiology.
For more information about Francois Raulins research please check the following websites:
