Thierry Ghislain

Prof. Thierry Ghislain began his career with a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry (B.Sc.), obtained in 2003 at Aix-Marseille University (Marseille, FRANCE) and Avignon University (Avignon, FRANCE). During this period, he did an internship at the Radiochemical and Chemical Analysis Laboratory (LARC) at the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) of Cadarache (Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, FRANCE) and worked, in particular, on the quantification of organic compounds and cations by capillary electrophoresis. In 2006, he obtained his Master’s degree in analytical chemistry (M.Sc.). During his first year, he worked at the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) (Zurich, SWITZERLAND) under the supervision of Prof. Detlef Günther and worked on the construction of a Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). During the second year, he worked under the supervision of Prof. Laurence Charles (mass spectrometry team) at the Laboratoire de Chimie Provence (LCP) at Aix-Marseille University (Marseille, FRANCE). During his internship, he studied the influence of triple quadrupole and ion trap mass analyzers on the determination of enantiomeric excess by mass spectrometry.

In 2011, he obtained his Ph.D. in Earth Sciences / Analytical Chemistry at the University of Lorraine (Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, FRANCE) under the supervision of Dr. Raymond Michels (Géoressources) and Dr. Pierre Faure (Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Continental Ecosystems (LIEC) on the characterization of organic matter and petroleum by coupling size exclusion chromatography, high resolution mass spectrometry (Q-TOF) and different atmospheric pressure ionization sources (ESI, APCI and APPI). He also developed a mathematical and statistical model for interpreting the origin of asphatlenes by mass spectrometry.

During his Ph.D., he was recruited by Prof. Wolfgang Schrader (mass spectrometry group) to continue his research on the couplings between chromatography and mass spectrometry applied to the characterization of petroleum and its derivatives (7 and 12 T-FTICR and Orbitrap mass spectrometers) at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforchnug (Mülheim-an-der Ruhr, GERMANY).

Wanting to focus more on renewable energies, Prof. Thierry Ghislain joined in 2013 the Reactions Engineering for the Environment and Renewable Energies research group (GREENER) at the Reactions and Process Engineering Laboratory (LRGP, Nancy, FRANCE) in collaboration with Dr. Anthony Dufour and Prof. Guillain Mauviel to continue to develop couplings between chromatography and mass spectrometry, but also by direct analysis using Laser Desorption / Ionization (LDI-FTICRMS).

At the same time, Prof. Thierry Ghislain obtained a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the Nancy School of Management in 2015 (Nancy, FRANCE).

In 2015, Prof. Thierry Ghislain joined the Biomass Technology Laboratory (BTL) as head of the analytical chemistry laboratory of the BTL (Sherbrooke, Canada). In 2020, he was appointed Adjunct Professor before becoming Assistant Professor in 2024 at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology Engineering of the University of Sherbrooke in 2020.

Prof. Thierry Ghislain is the director of the Biomass, Bioproduct and Bioprocess Analysis Laboratory (L.A.B) as well as the administrative and business development director of the BTL.

Prof. Thierry Ghislain has a very broad expertise in analytical chemistry applied to various fields and in particular to the analysis of biomass and conversion products, but also in agriculture, agri-food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and materials. For the past years, he has also worked on the characterization, production and application developement for biochar.