At which French university did Louis Pasteur serve as Dean of the Faculty of Sciences?

Louis Pasteur served as Dean of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Lille. He was appointed in 1854, when the university’s new faculty was being established.

Lille proved important to Pasteur’s scientific development because the region’s industries brought him practical problems to investigate. He studied fermentation and worked with local manufacturers, including Louis Bigo, whose beetroot-alcohol distillery faced difficulties with spoiled fermentations. These investigations helped Pasteur argue that fermentation was connected with living microorganisms.

During his time in Lille, Pasteur also became associated with the observation that chance favors prepared minds. He left Lille for Paris in 1857 to become director of scientific studies at the École Normale Supérieure. His Lille appointment therefore marked a short but crucial bridge between his early academic chemistry and his later work in microbiology and disease.