Meet Audrey
Audrey Moores, PhD, X98, MRSC
Supervisor
Bio
Audrey Moores is a Canadian Pacific Chair in Biotechnology and Full Professor of Chemistry and associate director of the Facility for Electron Microscopy Research (FEMR) at McGill University. She serves as an topic editor for ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. In 2020 she became a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada, which is the junior body of the equivalent to a Canadian Academy of Science. She was elected president of the College in 2024. In 2021 she received the Canadian Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Award for Green Chemistry.
She completed her PhD from the Ecole Polytechnique, France in 2005, under the supervision of Prof. Pascal Le Floch and received the Best Thesis award of the Ecole Polytechnique that year. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Yale University in 2006 under the guidance of Prof. Robert H. Crabtree, funded by a Lavoisier fellowship from the European Union.
She is a leading expert in the field of green and sustainable chemistry. She has developed novel processes based on catalysis and mechanochemistry. She has deployed a portfolio of mechanochemical and aging-based methods to cleanly and efficiently extract chitosan from crustacean waste (Green Chem. 2019, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2022 & 2 active patents). This process is currently being scaled-up with a realistic prospect of commercialization. She is also developing entirely novel methods towards the synthesis of size controlled nanomaterials under solvent-free conditions, as well as a functionalization platform of polysaccharide via mechanochemical activation. Her work is also concerned with environmental science, especially nanomaterials toxicity, and contaminant degradation. Her scientific work has been published in over 130 high profile, peer reviewed publications, such as J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angewante Chemie, Green Chem., Chem. Comm., or ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. She also authored 9 book chapters, 1 book and 5 patents (>12029 citations & h-index 52 from Google Scholar). She has received over 200 invitations to present her research as research seminars or at conferences, including the keynote addresses internationally.
She has served as co-associate director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Catalysis, a strategic cluster funded by the Le Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies (2012-2016) and co-Leader of the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative at McGill University (2017-2023). She has been the scientific director in the board of GreenCenter Canada, an Ontario-based tech transfer company (2016-2019), a member of the advisory board of the Green Chemistry Institute (America Chemical Society, 2018-2023) and associate editor for ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2016-2023). She has led three FRQNT Team Grants dedicated to clean nanomaterials synthesis and was awarded in 2017 three CFI grants to purchase circa $4M of equipment, including a state of the art transmission electron microscope. She also sits on the advisory boards of three major European research centers on green chemistry and catalysis.
She has received a number of awards, including a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry (2007-17), and a Discovery Accelerator Supplement Award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (2018). In 2019 she received a Fessenden Professorship awarded by the faculty of science at McGill University towards the commercial development of her discovery on the clean transformation of crustacean shells into valuable biopolymer chitosan. In 2020 she was selected to be among the 250 future Canadian leaders for the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference and nominated as a session co-chair. She was also a university-funded visiting professor at the University of Tokyo (2024). In 2024, she chaired the Gordon Research Conference in Green Chemistry. She is also an expert and global teacher of green and sustainable chemistry, which she has taught in Mexico, Ukraine, Indonesia and Japan and is a passionate public speaker on issues of women in science, green chemistry and languages of research.
Short CV
Academic and Leadership Positions: Current
Professor, Dept. of Chemistry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada (May. 2021 – present)
Associate Member, Dept. of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada (Sep. 2019 – present)
Elected Council Member, College of the Royal Society of Canada (May. 2021- present)
Member, College of the Royal Society of Canada, 2020 class (Sep. 2020- present)
Co-chair, NB study tour, Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference (Jun. 2020-Jun. 2022)
Member, advisory board, Green Center Institute, American Chemical Society (Mar. 2018 – present)
Co-Leader, McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative, Materials Theme, McGill University (Sep. 2017 - present)
Associate Director, Facility for Electron Microscopy Research (FEMR), McGill University (Jun. 2017 - present)
Associate Editor, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, American Chemical Society (Sep. 2016 - present)
Member of the scientific committee and board of the FQRNT "Centre en la Chimie Verte et la Catalyse" (Apr. 2012 – present)
Education
Ph.D. Chemistry (Sep. 2002 – Sep. 2005)
Supervisor: Prof. Pascal Le Floch. Dissertation: “On Phosphinine Reduction”
Lab. “Heteroéléments and Coordination”
Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France
M.Sc. Chemistry (Sep. 2001 – Aug. 2002)
Supervisor Prof. Pascal Le Floch
Lab. “Heteroéléments and Coordination”
Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France
ranked in the top 10% of the class
B.Sc. Science (diplôme d’ingénieur, X98), Chemistry Major (Aug. 1998 – Aug. 2001)
Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France
Preparatory Classes at Lycée Châteaubriand (Rennes, France), 1996 - 1998
Awards and Honours
Canadian Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Award for Green Chemistry, 2021.
Member, College of the Royal Society of Canada, 2020 class (Sep. 2020- present)
Fessenden Professorship Award, McGill University (2019-2020).
NSERC Discovery (2008-2012, 2012 - 2018, 2018-2023) and Discovery Accelerator Grants (2018 - 2021).
Labex MATISSE visiting professorship award, Paris, 2017.
Nominated by students for a Sustainability Catalyst Award, McGill University, 2016
Best Presentation in an I&EC session at the 251st ACS National Meeting in San Diego, 2016.
Outside Quebec Exchange Professorship, 2014, awarded by FRQNT, in support for a 2 month visit at Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA
Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry (Tier II, renewal), 2012 - 2017
Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry (Tier II), 2007 - 2012
Best PhD Thesis Award, Ecole Polytechnique, 2005
Lavoisier Post-doctoral Fellowship 2005 - present (Administered by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Monge Doctoral Fellowship, 2002 - 2005
Ecole Polytechnique Master's Fellowship, 2001 - 2002
Prix de stage d'option (Best Senior Thesis Award) in Chemistry, Ecole Polytechnique, 2001, for a project in the group of Prof. David Cole-Hamilton (St Andrews, Scotland)
Best Poster Award at the JCO Conference, 2004, Palaiseau, France, 2004
Best Lecture Award, PhD Seminar Series on Phosphorus Chemistry, Bonn, Germany, 2005
Best Poster Award, Eurochem Conference, Nancy, France, 2005
Academic and Leadership Positions: Past
Associate Editor, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, American Chemical Society (Sep. 2016 - Jun. 2023)
Associate Professor, Dept. of Chemistry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada (Jun. 2014 – Apr. 2021)
Canada Research Chair, Tier II (2007-2012; renewed 2012-2017)
Visiting Professor, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris (Oct. – Nov. 2017)
Academic Director in the Board of Directors, GreenCenter Canada (Jun. 2016 – Jun 2019)
Member of a American Chemical Society – Green Chemistry Institute Panel “Green Chemistry Education Roadmap” (Jun. 2016)
Associate Editor, RSC Advances, Royal Chemical Society (Aug. 2015 – Aug. 2016)
Co-associate director of the FQRNT "Centre en la Chimie Verte et la Catalyse" (Apr. 2012 – Jul. 2016)
Visiting Professor, Princeton University (Oct. – Dec. 2014)
Member of a US Panel on molecule design avoiding endocrine disruption. (Apr. 2012)
Program Committee member of the NSERC-CREATE in "Green Chemistry" (Apr. 2012 – Apr. 2017)
Assistant Professor, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada (Jan. 2007 – May 2014)
Post-doctoral Fellow with Prof. Robert H. Crabtree, Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA (Nov. 2005 – Dec. 2006)
Teaching
CHEM 462 Green Chemistry (3 credits)
CHEM 603 Principles and Applications of Materials Characterization (3 credits)
