Tribute to Jim Emsley

The death of Professor (Emeritus) James William Emsley (better known as “Jim”) of the University of Southampton is a great lost. Yesterday, I learned of the death of Professor (Emeritus) James William Emsley (better known as “Jim”) of the University of Southampton. This is very sad news for NMRists working with oriented media. He was one of the pioneers (along with Zeev Luz and Aharon Loewenstein, for instances, two other mentors of my career) of NMR spectroscopy in aligned media (historically using thermotropic liquid crystals) and has contributed to the development of numerous tools aimed at simplifying the analysis of anisotropic NMR spectra for over 40 years. His latest article (a review) was published in Prog. Nucl. Magn. Reson. at the end of 2025. He was a brilliant and exceptional scientist, but also a kind person full of humanity. I greatly enjoyed our discussions over the years. Thanks to him, I learned a great deal during my postdoctoral studies in Southampton (October 1995 - October 1996) working alongside him, and then during our years of collaboration. It was a pleasure and an honor for me to publish 11 articles with him. Llittle anecdote : I introduced him to a typical French dish: escargots. He remained very diplomatic. My sincere condolences to his family, loved ones, and in particular his son Lyndon, another famous NMR spectroscopist.