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Prof. Alain Mocellin was born in 1943, Metz, France. He obtained his civil engineering diploma in mines at the École des Mines de Nancy, France. In 1966 he was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of Cambridge, USA to prepare a thesis under the supervision of Professor Kingery, pioneer of the young science of ceramic. He obtained his Ph.D. after 4 years of research.
In 1970, he returned to France to fulfill his military obligations, and in 1971, joined the Materials Center of the Ecole des Mines de Paris that was set up in Corbeil, located in the heart of the new factory of the SNECMA opened in 1967. He created a research group there, the "Ceramics Group" which he managed and successfully grew until 1977. In 1977 he left France to join, as a Professor, the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne to found a new "Ceramic Laboratory". He managed it and ensured its full development until 1988 when he proposed an ambitious project to create an innovative research laboratory on technical ceramics at the Ecole des Mines de Nancy. Shortly after his arrival to Nancy as Professor of University, a change in the university policy forced to reconsider his plans to settle in Nancy. He proposed to put his skills and his unique network of scientific and industrial relations at the service of the whole of the National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine, begun creating a research group on ceramics in the Laboratory of Science and Engineering of Materials and Metallurgy of the School of Mines, and completed this initiative by launching and running a program of exchanges and European collaborations with the Institute of New Materials of the University of Saarbrücken. In Lausanne, he accepted the responsibility of Head of the Materials Department at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and stayed there from 1980 to 1982. In Nancy, he agreed to take charge of the Institut Lorrain des Matériaux for two years, in 1995 and 1996. From 2001, he accepted responsibility for the Materials Department of the Ecole des Mines. He was on the board of directors in "Laboratories of Refractories and Ceramic Materials" company hoping to help set up in Nancy a French pole of industrial and scientific expertise in the field of refractory materials. From 1979 to 1989 he held a position as Scientific Advisor to the Brown-Boveri Society in Switzerland. Alain Mocellin was an excellent initiator and a promoter of technical ceramic materials and special ceramics. His scientific and research life is truly remarkable with 7 patents (quite rare in the French university), 140 scientific and technical articles, including 14 invited conferences, and 19 theses. Many international scientific societies had him recognized, the International Institute for the Science of Sintering as a corresponding member, and of the World Academy of Ceramics as a full member. For more than 15 years Alain Mocellin was a permanent member of the Editing Committee of the "Materials Treaty". He would have had the satisfaction of knowing that this Treaty is praised by all to this day.
Those who worked closely with him will never forget his lessons and analyzes. Professor Alain Mocellin died on May 11, 2016.