What motivated you to specialise in theoretical chemistry?
I studied physics and chemistry, but it turned out that I wasn’t very good at physics. So I registered in chemical physics where I had two outstanding professors. One taught a very modern topic at the time, called the Woodward-Hoffmann rules. I thought that this was so good that I had to work with Hoffmann. I became a postdoc with him a couple of years after my PhD with Nguyen Trong Anh and L. Salem. I like the logic of theoretical chemistry, and the possibility of creativity with images. I felt I had the ability to be accurate with drawings – it wasn’t just solving equations. It involves a special blend of mathematical and physical accuracies and qualitative descriptions, often in graphical forms. This blend is very fulfilling and incredibly powerful for solving chemical problems and communicating the results to a large audience. “I wanted to stay close to experimental chemists, so my main trade is doing computational chemistry for them” – Odile EisensteinMy first experience in a lab
