Marco Castaldi has been selected to fill the inaugural laboratory of excellence (LabEX) visiting scholar chair position at Ecole des Mines. This position is funded by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the National Agency for Research, and Ecole des Mines d’Albi-Carmaux. The LabEx designation is given for 10 years to the top 10% of laboratories in France by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research of France. The funding will support research on heterogeneous interface reaction kinetics, in particular gasification and catalysis, and will support another student in the EDM-CCL collaboration.