Members of the French Academy of Sciences

Charles_Depéret

Charles Jean Julien Depéret (25 June 1854 – 18 May 1929) was a French geologist and paleontologist. He was a member of the French Academy of Sciences, the Société géologique de France and dean of the Science faculty of Lyon.
Charles Depéret was born in Perpignan. He started his career as a military doctor from 1877 to 1888. Initially posted in Algeria, he was later active in Sathonay. In 1888, he became lecturer at Aix-Marseille University, and in 1889 he became professor of geology at the University of Lyon. He died in Lyon.In 1892 he introduced the Burdigalian Stage (Lower Miocene) based on stratigraphic units found near Bordeaux and in the Rhône Valley. He was an advocate of the controversial prehistoric artifacts findings of Glozel. Along with Edward Drinker Cope, his name is associated with the so-called "Cope-Depéret rule", a law which asserts that in population lineages, body size tends to increase over evolutionary time.

Yves_Delage

Yves Delage (13 May 1854 – 7 October 1920) was a French zoologist known for his work into invertebrate physiology and anatomy. He also discovered the function of the semicircular canals in the inner ear. He is also famous for noting and preparing a speech on the Turin Shroud, arguing in favour of its authenticity. Delage estimated the probability that the image on the shroud was not caused by the body of Jesus Christ as 1 in 10 billion.

Pierre_Paul_Dehérain

Pierre Paul Dehérain (19 April 1830 in Paris – 7 December 1902) was a French plant physiologist and agricultural chemist. He was notably the doctoral advisor of the Nobel Prize winner Henri Moissan.
He served as an assistant at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers in Paris, then at the age of 26, began work as a professor at the Collège Chaptal. He obtained his LSc degree in 1856 under Edmond Frémy. Later on, he taught classes in agricultural chemistry at the agricultural school in Grignon, and in 1880, became a professor of plant physiology at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1887 he was elected a member of the Académie des sciences.As a plant physiologist, he studied the absorption of carbon dioxide by plants and the effect of artificial light, especially ultraviolet rays, on plants. He showed that plants do not absorb only those minerals that are beneficial, as previously thought, but absorb all of them and then use those that they need – so that consumption regulates absorption. He discovered respiration by plant roots and investigated the effect of different minerals on the growth of fruits. He also studied effect of crop rotation on soil quality.
The plant genus Deherainia from the family Theophrastaceae is named after him.

Jules_Henri_Debray

Jules Henri Debray (26 July 1827, in Amiens – 19 July 1888, in Paris) was a French chemist.
In 1847 he began his studies at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and several years later became an instructor at the Lycée Charlemagne (1855). From 1875 onward, he taught classes in chemistry at the École Normale Supérieure, where in 1881 he succeeded Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville as professor of chemistry.He is best remembered for his collaborative research with Sainte-Claire Deville involving the properties of platinum metals, in particular, the melting of platinum and its alloys. Their process for melting platinum remained the chosen method until induction furnaces became available decades later. In 1860, the two scientists were the first to melt an appreciable quantity of iridium.During his career, Debray served as an assayer for the Bureau de Garantie of Paris, was vice-president of the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale and was a member of the Académie des sciences.

Robert_Courrier

Marie Jules Constant Robert Courrier ForMemRS (6 October 1895 – 13 March 1986) was a French biologist, and doctor. He was a secretary of the French Academy of Sciences from 1948 to 1986. He was the winner of 1963 CNRS Gold medal, the highest scientific research award in France.

Ernest_Cosson

Ernest Saint-Charles Cosson (22 July 1819 – 31 December 1889) was a French botanist born in Paris.
Cosson is known for his botanical research in North Africa, and during his career he participated in eight trips to Algeria. In several of these he was accompanied by Henri-René Le Tourneux de la Perraudière (1831–1861), whom he honoured in the naming of several species and genera (e.g., Perralderia, Galium perralderii). In 1863 he was elected president of the Société botanique de France, and from 1873 to 1889, he was a member of the Académie des sciences.In 1882 Jules Ferry, as Minister of Public Instruction, decided to create a mission to explore the Regency of Tunisia.
The expedition was headed by Cosson and included the botanist Napoléon Doumet-Adanson and other naturalists.
In 1884 a geological section under Georges Rolland was added to the Tunisian Scientific Exploration Mission.
Rolland was assisted by Philippe Thomas from 1885 and by Georges Le Mesle in 1887.With Jacques Nicolas Ernest Germain de Saint-Pierre (1815–1882), Cosson published the influential Atlas de la Flore des Environs de Paris.Botanical specimens collected by Cosson are held in many herbaria around the world, including the National Museum of Natural History, France, Harvard University Herbaria, the herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the National Herbarium of Victoria at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Copenhagen University Botanical Museum, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Komarov Botanical Institute, among others.

Gaspard_Adolphe_Chatin

Gaspard Adolphe Chatin (30 November 1813, Tullins – 13 January 1901) was a French physician, mycologist and botanist who was born in Tullins Isère, and died in Les Essarts-le-Roi. He was the first to prove that goiter was related to iodine deficiency.
He studied at the Faculté de Médecine in Paris and received his doctorate in May 1840. In 1841, he became Chief Pharmacist at the Beaujon Hospital in Paris, and in 1859 at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris. He taught botany at the Ecole Superieure de Pharmacie, which he directed from 1874. In April 1886, there were student riots at the school, and his dismissal was demanded. He retired in August 1886 with the title of honorary director.
He was a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine (1853) and the Académie des Sciences (1874). He was a member of the Société Botanique de France, which he led in 1862, 1878, 1886 and 1896. In 1878, he became an Officer of the Legion d'honneur.
He was the father of the botanist and zoologist Joannes Charles Melchior Chatin (1847–1912).

Georges_Charpy

Georges Augustin Albert Charpy (1 September 1865 – 25 November 1945) was the French scientist who created the Charpy impact test. He attended École Polytechnique from 1885 to 1887 and graduated with a degree in Marine Artillery. In 1887 he became a professor at École Monge. In 1892 he published his physics thesis. In 1920 he became a professor of metallurgy at École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris. In 1922 he became the professor of general chemistry at École Polytechnique.