Jean-Pierre Doucet, retired Professor of chemistry, died unexpectedly in his sleep Jan. 25. He was on the cusp of 87.
In the early 60s, Jean-Pierre was introduced to research in physicochemistry in the laboratory of organic chemistry of Professor F.J. Taboury at the University of Poitiers as part of his thesis on the analysis by infra-red and ultra-violet spectroscopy of the carbonyl group (1964). Then on his arrival at the Faculty of Sciences of Paris (1965) he turned to the application of these approaches in organic chemistry, in particular the study of the influence of the chemical structure of molecules on their properties using quantic and topological methods. Following his appointment as Professor at the University of Amiens in 1968, Jean-Pierre created the laboratory of physical organic chemistry. In 1972 he joined the Institute of topology and dynamics of systems (ITODYS) at the University of Paris 7 directed by Professor J.E. Dubois to lead the research group in computational chemistry and simulation. Interested in the use of the DARC (Description, Acquisition, Restitution and Conception) system for deriving structure-property and structure-activity relationships he rapidly extended his research activity to any kind of descriptors and statistical approaches for computing QSPR and QSAR models. Even after his retirement in 2003, Jean-Pierre remained very active in the QSAR field collaborating with different research teams worldwide and participating in numerous international meetings.
Jean-Pierre was the advisor to 17 Ph.D. students and he mentored many more. He wrote about 200 scientific articles and two books. Jean-Pierre also has coproduced two movies.
His passing left a huge void in the life of his wife Annick, and also in the lives of his friends, past collaborators, and colleagues.