Laurent Catoire is a professor in applied chemical kinetics, in particular in combustion and in general in all reactive systems. After a DGA thesis, he has been working for 30 years on reactive systems that are little studied, poorly known but with important or potentially important applications (hypergolic systems in space propulsion, civil and military energetic materials (explosives, propellants and gas generators), energetic ionic liquids, nanothermites, aluminium combustion, metal combustion, etc).