Odile Eisenstein

Odile Eisenstein is Professor of Chemistry Emerita at the University of Montpellier in France. Eisenstein's research on molecular organic and organometallic chemistry has direct impact in homogeneous catalysis. She is one of the leaders in the revolution that has seen her area move from a position of great skepticism on the part of experimentalists to the current one of being essential to understanding and developing novel chemistry. Her achievements include: a detailed explanation enantioselectivity in reactions, prediction of d 0 structures, analysis of agostic CH bonds, understanding dihydrogen bonding, revealing outer sphere mechanisms in catalysis, and the electronic origin of the shielding tensor for metal-bonded 13 C NMR, relating NMR to molecular orbitals and reactivity.