Professor Nicaise left the land of Lavoisier and Pasteur for love -and also for the love of chemistry!-, and earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1993 from the University of Illinois for work carried out under the guidance of Prof. Scott Denmark.  After postdoctoral work in medicinal chemistry in the laboratories of Prof. Léon Ghosez at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium (1993-1996), Professor Nicaise and his family returned to the native land of his wife, and following a love for teaching that he developed while in graduate school, he first accepted a visiting teaching position at Hamline University, in St. Paul, MN, and then at Alma College, in Alma, MI.  This teaching experience led Professor Nicaise to be on the chemistry faculty at Saint Louis University, in St. Louis, MO, from 1998 until 2004, date at which he and his family moved to his wife’s native state, and he accepted a position at Southern Connecticut State University, in New Haven, CT.  Professor Nicaise is now at Trinity to enjoy once more the unique and wonderful atmosphere that can be found on a liberal arts college campus, and that he experienced at the beginning of his academic career.

It is Professor Nicaise’s passion for chemistry that makes him enjoy talking about it, i.e., teaching it so much, and he considers this passion to be the most important and necessary ingredient in order to keep being an excellent teacher while at Trinity.