​Prof. Jean Marie Basset is a Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences and Engineering Division and was, from 2009 to 2017, the Director of the KAUST Catalysis Center (KCC). He joined KAUST in September 2009. Catalysis is a strategic domain for the world and particularly Saudi Arabia. It is a critical enabling science for the Kingdom's energy future. Improvement in the catalytic processes across the chemical and petroleum  industries  will  increase  resources  and  energy  utilization  efficiencies  and  reduce waste. Needs for breakthroughs in catalysis are imperative requirements to meet the energy challenges "beyond petroleum": the use of CO₂ Natural Gas and CO utilization, and efficient photo catalysts for water splitting are crucial domains for catalysis. To meet these challenges, the field must advance from catalyst discovery to catalysis by design. Prof Basset has recently develop a theory to predict any catalytic reaction on the basis of the catalysis by design with single site catalysis.

Prof. Basset served as scientific director of the School of Chemistry, Physics and Electronics at the University of Lyon in France. He was appointed Research Director at the Centre National de la  Recherché Scientifique (CNRS) in 1987, and funded his laboratory of Surface Organometallic Chemistry that he has held since 1994.  Prof. Basset's Lyon lab was home to 50 scientists, including Nobel Laureate Yves Chauvin.  Jean  Marie  came  to  CNRS  in  1971  and  has  occupied  several positions,  including  vice  director  of  the  Institute  of  Catalysis  (Lyon).  He  also  founded  the consortium  "Actane"  on  alkane  activation  with  11  university  labs  and  five  companies.  Since  1992,  he  also  has  served  as  Scientific  Director  of  L'École Supérieure   de  Chimie  Physique Electronique  de Lyon (CPE, Lyon), which has trained 450 chemists in a three-­‐year  scholarship program. He joined KCC and Saudi Arabia in September 2009. He has been the funding member of the KAUST catalysis center for which he was the Director until October 2017.  He is also a founding member of KAUST.  He has written more than 600 publications in international journals, he holds 70 patents most of them world ones.

He received several awards: Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts; Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Xiamen  (CN);  Doctor Honoris Causa, TUM, (DE), Augustine Award of the ORCS (US); Distinguished Achievements Award of IMPI (USA); Chevalier dans l'Ordre National du Mérite(FR): Member of the European Academy of Sciences(FR); Member of the French Academy of Technologies (FR); August-Wilhem-Von-Hofman-Vorselung" Lecturer(DE); Academy of Sciences Award, «Prix de l'Institut Français du Pétrole»(FR); «Seaborg Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry» (Université de Berkeley)(US); «Max Plank Award» with W. Herrmann (DE); «Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences» Award; «Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences» Award (Jap); «Alexander Von Humboldt» Award; « Pacific Coast Lecturer West Coast »USA; "Visiting Professor University of Hokkaido "(Jap)