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Dr Chris Ritchie is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Chemistry of Monash University (Australia). He is a visiting Professor in PPSM from December 4 to 12, 2023.
After obtaining his PhD in 2008 from the University of Glasgow (Scotland, UK) with Prof. Leroy Cronin, Chris Ritchie pursued his career as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Melbourne in the laboratory of Prof. Colette Boskovic. In 2013, he was awarded an ARC (Australian Research Council) fellowship to teach and work for 5 years on the development of polyoxometallate-based devices. In 2018, he was awarded a second ARC fellowship at Monash University, to install his research in the field of luminophores and photochromes. He now holds a Senior Lecturer position at Monash University. During his years as a researcher, Chris Ritchie won a number of research contracts as Principal Investigator, notably with the highly selective ARC. His field of expertise is broad, covering organic-inorganic systems for the preparation of new molecules and functional materials, through to photo- and mechano-active systems capable of modulating their optical properties under the effect of light or mechanical stimuli. He leads his own group at Monash University, developing ambitious and innovative research, while maintaining a strong teaching activity in chemistry. Chris Ritchie has been collaborating for over two years with the PPSM Laboratory at ENS Paris-Saclay, on understanding the mechanofluorochromism phenomena of fluorescent and polymorphic molecules in the solid state, in close interaction with the Solid Mechanics Laboratory at École Polytechnique. The collaboration continues with the study of molecular systems whose fluorescence is simultaneously photo- and mechanosensitive.