He is Professor at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon and a member of the Academia Europaea.
He defended a graduate thesis in geochemistry (advised by Claude Allegre) at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris ("Paris Institute of Earth Physics"), where he remained several years as a teacher and researcher.
Finally, in 1991 he joined the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon where he now serves as the director of the department of earth and life sciences.
The scientific influence of Francis Albarède is very strong in the field of geochemistry and earth sciences in general.
His leading position in his discipline was accompanied by the acquisition in the laboratory of the first commercial sample mass spectrometer multicollection plasma source in the mid-1990s, and the editorial responsibility of prestigious international scientific journals.