October 2009
The Renault-EP-HEC chair award "Multicultural management and company performances" was awarded on 1 October to Arnauld Marrou (Ecole Polytechnique), Ahmed Amine Esmil (HEC) and Giridhar Panga (IIMA) for their work on "Skills Transfers between the Technocentres of Guyancourt-Chennai".
At the 9th Congress of the "International Symposium on Therapeutic Ultrasound", the Fred Lizzi Early Career Award went to Mickaël Tanter (Director of Research at the Institut Langevin – Waves & Images at ESPCI ParisTech) for his career as a young researcher.
Habibou Maitournam, Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanics at LMS (Ecole Polytechnique), has received the Academy of Sciences Plumey Award 2009 for "having made exceptional contributions to the modelling of processes and the mechanical fatigue resistance of structures, to the estimation of their life cycle and to the implementation of effective and rapid digital methods." Created in 1859, the PLUMEY Award is the biennial Academy of Sciences recognition of outstanding work in mechanics. The will left by MJB Plumey on 10 July 1859 stipulated that the award was intended for the "person responsible for perfecting steam machines or any other invention in which (in the opinion of the Academy) has contributed most to the progress of steam navigation."
Haini Qu, a PhD student co-supervised the Laboratory of Electronics at ESPCI ParisTech (UMR 7084 CNRS) and Tongji University (China), received the "Best student paper Award" at the International Joint Conference on Bioinformatics, Systems Biology and Intelligent Computing (Shanghai, August 2009) for a presentation entitled "Regularized Recurrent Least Squares Support Vector Machines" by Haini Qu, Yacine Oussar, Gérard Dreyfus and Weisheng Xu.
Yannick d'Escatha, an alumnus of Ecole Polytechnique (X 66), former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Ecole Polytechnique (2001-2008) and president of the National Space Study Centre (CNES), has been awarded the 25th annual "International von Kármán Wings Award". Abdul Kalam, the President of India from 2002 to 2007 and a professor at the Madras Institute of Technology was honoured along with him at Caltech on Tuesday, 15 September. This is the 25th year that this award has been given by the Aerospace Historical Society (AHS), which is now involved in the Caltech Graduate Aerospace Laboratories. This award has a rich heritage in preserving global aerospace history and recognizing the pioneers and visionaries of the aerospace industry. In addition to their amazing achievements in the aerospace sector, the award winners this year are at the very forefront of international collaboration on the monitoring of climate and energy harvesting.
Danièle Fournier, ESPCI Engineer and Professor Emeritus in the Laboratory of Physics and Materials Study has been awarded the 2009 "James Smith IPPA Prize" by the International Photoacoustic and Photothermal Association.
For the 1st year, the Leprince Ringuet École Polytechnique Award has gone to 4 Romanian students who distinguish themselves at the Romanian Olympiad in physics. This award, which is a scientific and tourist stay lasting one week, stands alongside the Henri Poincaré Prize, which for 3 years has been awarded to Romanian high school students who show promise at the Romanian mathematics Olympiads. The Leprince Ringuet Award was initiated by researchers from IN2P3, with the support of the French Embassy in Romania and the Ecole Polytechnique.
The Laboratory of the Physics & Mechanics of Heterogeneous Environments of ESPCI ParisTech (CNRS UMR 7615) is one of the 10 winners of the "Emergence(s)" research project tender, a new programme initiated by the City of Paris in order to finance young or new research teams in Paris which are either multidisciplinary or working on innovative themes.
Christine Garban-Labaune, research director at the CNRS and a researcher at the École Polytechnique's laboratory on the use of intense lasers (LULI), has won the 2009 Grand Prix Lazare Carnot from the Académie des Sciences. Christine Labaune has made a decisive contribution to understanding the complex physics governing how a very intense laser's energy is deposited in matter. Her experiments have guided the successive changes leading to the design of large lasers intended for defence studies and controlled in-laboratory nuclear fusion for future energy production applications.
Amir Gandjbakhch, a Senior Investigator at the National Institute of Health (USA) and Visiting Scholar at the Laboratory of Optical Physics at ESPCI ParisTech, is the winner of the prestigious NIH Merit Award.
July 2009
Ludwik Leibler, professor at the City of Paris École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles and director of the UMR 7167 CNRS/ESPC, has received the Institut français du pétrole (French Petroleum Institute) award.
ACM SIGMOD/PODS, the world's most prestigious database conference, has just ended in Providence, Rhode Island. For the first time, Samuel Madden and Michael Stonebraker of MIT organised a programming competition in the framework of the event. Clément Genzmer, a student who is pursuing a double degree at the École Polytechnique and Télécom ParisTech, won the US$5,000 programming competition prize.
Christine Garban-Labaune, research director at the CNRS and a researcher at the École Polytechnique's laboratory on the use of intense lasers (LULI), has won the 2009 Grand Prix Lazare Carnot de l'Académie des sciences. Ms. Labaune has made a decisive contribution to understanding the complex physics governing how a very intense laser's energy is deposited in matter. Her experiments have guided the successive changes leading to the design of big lasers intended for defence studies and controlled in-laboratory nuclear fusion for future energy production applications.
Telecom ParisTech's EtherTrust project has won the national competition of aid for the creation of innovative technology companies.
Stefano Secci, a PhD student at Télécom ParisTech, has received the 2009 NGI conference's Best Paper Award.
Roger Frank, professor at the École des Ponts ParisTech and research director at the Navier research unit's "Geotechnics" team (CERMES), and Pierre Pouget, of the Clermont-Ferrand Ponts et Chaussées regional laboratory, have received the George-Stephenson medal from the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in the United Kingdom for their article "Experimental pile subjected to long duration thrusts owing to a moving slope" published in the journal Géotechnique. The prize, one of the ICE's top three awards, rewards the second-best contribution among the scientific articles published in 2008 in all the civil engineering journals managed by the ICE and its publication subsidiary (Thomas Tel Ford).
Imane AMRANI HANCHI, of the Hassania School of Public Works in Casablanca a student in the VE department and Jorge HIDALGO PÉREZ SIMON, of the Escuela de Caminos, Grenada, also a student in the GCC department, have won the 2008 Ecole des Ponts ParisTech best student trainee award. The jury, chaired by foundation president Bruno Angles, heard six candidates selected by the teaching department from among the 60 student trainees the school hosted during the 2007-2008 academic year. The winners received their prizes at their home institutions.
At the Ecole des Ponts ParisTech engineers' graduation ceremony, the Fondation des Ponts awarded Siavash Ghabezloo the 2008 thesis prize for his thesis entitled "Comportement thermo-poro-mécanique d'un ciment pétrolier" ("Thermo-Poro-Mechanical Behaviour of a Petroleum Cement"). The prize, created in 1998, rewards the best thesis defended the previous year. Céline Bonhomme will receive a special mention for her thesis "Turbulence et ondes en milieu naturel stratifié" ("Turbulence and Waves in a Stratified Natural Environment").
Joanna Bodgi, a former Ecole des Ponts ParisTech PhD student, received the René-Houpert award from the Association de Génie Civil at the 27th civil engineering professors' meeting in Saint-Malo in June 2009. The prize rewards the work of PhD students at the end of their thesis. Joanna Bodgi's work focused on pedestrian-structure synchronisation: application to vibrations of flexible footbridges.
The best science traineeship prize jury, which met on 26 May under the chairmanship of André Barre, XMP businessman, awarded the 2008 prize to Thomas Mauriac (Ecole des Ponts ParisTech) for his internship at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil: "managing crisis situations due to rapid flooding in urban environments".
École des Ponts ParisTech director Philippe Courtier awarded the Legion of Honour to École des Ponts ParisTech's former director of teaching Nicole Goujon, currently on a ParisTech teaching assignment, during a ceremony that ParisTech president Cyrille van Effenterre organised on 12 June at the house dedicated to ParisTech at the Cité Internationale.
Alain Weill (MBA, '84), founder and chairman of the NextRadioTV group, which owns La Tribune, was elected HEC of 2008. He received the "HEC of 2008" award from HEC Alumni Association president Xavier Romatet at the association's meeting on 17 June 2009.
May 2009
Chimie ParisTech Scientific Director Pierre Gareil has been re-elected president of AFSEP (the Francophone Association of Separation Sciences), which brings together French-speaking separation scientists and represents them internationally by organising symposia. Five clubs work in synergy: Ile de France, Val de Seine, Lyon, Switzerland and a Youth Club. Introducing the latest developments and instrumental breakthroughs, fostering exchanges and, above all, opening the meetings up to students (the technology’s future users) are the main lines of action.
Sylvain Darses wins the Teacher-Researcher of the Year Award of the French Chemistry Society’s Organic Chemistry Division (DCO/SCF). For several years Sylvain Darses has been conducting research on homogeneous catalysis for the development of new methodologies in synthesis at Chimie ParisTech in the former UMR 7223, which is now part of the Friedel UMR 7223. Mr Darses graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris with an engineering degree in 1993 and earned his doctorate at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Professor Jean-Pierre Genet’s ENSCP group in 1997. Three years later he won the Eugène Schueller Thesis Prize (L’Oréal). After a year of post-doctorate work in Professor Anthony G. M. Barrett’s group at Imperial College in London, he was appointed lecturer at the ENSCP. In 2004 he obtained accreditation to direct research (HDR). His research focuses on the development of catalysed reactions by transition metals and their applications in organic synthesis, boron chemistry (development of new boron derivatives, organotrifluoroborates) and the formation of carbon-carbon or carbon-heteroatom bonds through the catalytic activation of C-H bonds (atom economy, green chemistry).
Yulia Gorokhovik wins grant for Master’s Degree Internships in schools of the Gay-Lussac Federation. Yulia Gorokhovik, a third-year Chimie ParisTech engineering student, has obtained her master’s 2 internship in Dr Virginie Vidal’s team at the Friedel Department. She is working on the total synthesis of stevastelin B. Ms Gorokhovik, who has always had a passionate interest in organic chemistry, did her two study internships (two and six months) in medicinal chemistry companies. She obtained a €2,000 Novartis grant on the basis of ranking first in her class the first and second years, laudatory letters of recommendation and her motivation.
Alain Aspect and Thomas Ebbesen have won two senior prizes in quantum electronics and optics, the European Physical Society (EPS) announced on 11 May. The prizes are awarded once every two years and recognise the highest level of achievement in fundamental and applied research. The winners will receive their awards on 16 June at the conference on lasers and electro-optics (CLEO) Europe, held during World of Photonics congress in Munich, Germany.
Alain Aspect won the 2009 Senior Prize for Fundamental Aspects of Quantum Electronics and Optics. Mr Aspect, a 2005 CNRS gold medallist, is a director of research at the CNRS and professor at the Institut d'optique Graduate School and École Polytechnique in Palaiseau.
Thomas Ebbesen, who received the Prize for Applied Aspects of Quantum Electronics and Optics, is a professor at the University of Strasbourg in France and director of ISIS (Institute of Supramolecular Science and Engineering), a multidisciplinary research institute jointly funded by the university and the CNRS. He has made several discoveries in the area of carbon nanotubes. The European Physical Society is an international physicists’ organisation federating the national physical societies, representing 100,000 European physicists.
Gérard Mourou, a researcher at the Applied Optics Laboratory, a mixed unit of the CNRS, has won the Optical Society of America’s 2009 Charles H. Townes Award, the most prestigious prize in optics, lasers and quantum optics.
March 2009
Antoine Georges was appointed Professor of the Collège de France in mid February in the chair: "Physics of condensed matter" for Antoine Georges. "The wide-ranging title will enable me to give free rein to my scientific interests," explains Mr Georges. "In addition to a personal recognition in sciences which, of course, I am pleased about, this election shows recognition for the interest and current situation of a field of research: strongly correlated quantum materials", emphasises A. Georges. "I would like to think of my course at the Collège as in intellectual and scientific forum to present and debate on current questions with scientists in the field, theorists and experimenters, but also to create links with other fields, like quantum optics or the chemistry of materials. The Collège is a place where quite different disciplines can talk to each other. I am also relying on this challenge to keep my brain focused on science and avoid too many organisational activities".
During the Village de la Chimie 2009, Yvette Tran (Senior Lecturer at the Laboratory for Physics and chemistry of Polymers and Dispersed media at ESPCI ParisTech) and Jean-Marc Leleu (from the company ITW Spraytec) received the Prix Lavoisier 2008 de l'Apprentissage rewarding the best "In-company tutor – In-school tutor" pair for the chemical industry in the Paris region.
Shyama Ramani, Head of Research at INRA and associate researcher in the Economics Department of the Ecole Polytechnique, received the Trophy awarded by the Institute of France and the Yves Rocher Foundation "Terre de Femmes" 2008. In addition to her work in science, Shyama Ramani has several commitments in the field of development. She founded the association Un-Ami France/ Friend in Need Trust India and is co-founder and scientific advisor of TecKnowMetrix, an association which invented a low-cost procedure for collective sanitation. Thanks to this economist, Kameshwaram, a small village in the south of India, is now a reference for the United Nations as part of the Millennium for Development.
Virginie Vidal, Director of Research at CNRS and Phannarath Phansavath, Senior Lecturer at Chimie ParisTech, from the Charles Friedel laboratory, were elected on 2 March 2009 respectively Chairwoman and Secretary of the Organic Chemistry Division of the Chemical Society of France (SCF-DCO) for a period of 3 years.
Télécom Étude is one of the eight best Junior-Enterprises in France for the Excellence Prize awarded by CNJE and its partners. The Junior-Enterprises Excellence Prize (J.E.) is a contest organised by the National Confederation of Junior Enterprises (CNJE) in partnership with KPMG S.A., Altran, Microsoft France, BNP Paribas, the daily newspaper Les Échos and the Mouvement des Anciens de Junior-Enterprises (MAJE).
The first edition of the Innovation Prize of the École Polytechnique will close on Thursday 26 March with the presentation of the prize to Samir Zard in the "patents" category and to Albert Meige in the "company creation" category.
The invention by Samir Zard, director of the Laboratory of synthetic organics (DCSO), concerns a new procedure which makes it possible to synthesise polymers with original structures, with new properties. This procedure protected by 16 patents is now being used in industry.
The project by Albert Meige (Laboratory of Plasma Physics – LPP), PRESANS – Connecting industry NEEDS to academic EXPERTISE – with his network of international experts, brings operational solutions to his clients in industry, in an overall procedure based on "open innovation". The prize-giving ceremony will take place at 17:00 in the presence of Albert Fert, Nobel Prize for physics in 2007, and members of the jury.
The team of the Telecom ParisTech Debating Society rank three times in the top 3, out of five teams, in the University College Dublin IV tournament. A strong sign of internationalisation, it was the only French team and it even ranked once ahead of Cambridge. "Debating" consists in oratory jousting in English, inspired by the British parliamentary debates, and often practised in Anglo-Saxon universities.
Fondation Télécom: 3 students rewarded for their internships on 12 March, including Alexander ZEH from Télécom ParisTech in the category best scientific / technological internship for his placement at INRIA entitled "A Key Equation for the Guruswami-Sudan decoding algorithm".
February 2009
Jean-Florent Campion did an internship in the laboratory of engineering processes for plasmas and surface treatment in Chimie ParisTech. He invented APVD (Advanced Plasma and Vapor Deposition), an advanced technology for making optical fibres.
He has just been awarded the 2008 Chéreau–Lavet engineer-inventor prize. For the last 8 years, this prize, worth 15,000 euros, has rewarded an engineer whose innovation, applied to industry, constitutes a recognised technological and commercial breakthrough.
The APVD process represents 20% of the world market for optical fibres. Patents have been registered in France and abroad.
Professor Daniel Morvan remembers a passionate student full of curiosity, but also a sportsman "who knew how to lose and how to win" driven by team spirit. When he finished his course, after a two-year stay in the Beckman Institute (Illinois, USA) as part of a CITERE study grant, Jean-Florent Campion was hired by Alcatel. There, the experience he gained on purification by plasma at the École was put to full use and has been greatly improved. With his colleagues, he developed a new solution for purifying silica by plasma procedure by injecting fluoride.
For the last 4 years, Jean-Florent Campion has put his talent to use in a large cosmetic company, to take up the challenge of environmental issues.
January 2009
The company LLTech, which has developed a system of tomography from research by the Laboratoire d'Optique Physique de l'ESPCI ParisTech, has been awarded the Special prize for Innovation in the 10th edition of the "Mercure des entrepreneurs HEC" (member of ParisTech).
Europhysics News, the journal of the European Physics Society, is highlighting the recent work by Antoine Chateauminois and Christian Fretigny (respectively Head of Research and ESPCI Engineer, Director of the Laboratory for Physics and Chemistry of Polymers and Dispersed media at ESPCI ParisTech) which makes it possible to make a micrometric scale image of the distribution of local friction between two rough surfaces.
In "Reflets de la Physique", the journal of the French Physics Society (SFP), Michèle Leduc and Roger Maynard (current and former chairs of the SFP) have raised ESPCI ParisTech as a future model for engineering schools.
In its January edition, the Journal of the CNRS highlights the results obtained by the team of Jérôme Bibette in the laboratory for Colloids and Divided Materials at ESPCI ParisTech, which explain why the helicoids form is so often encountered in nature.
Didier Roux, Director of Research and Development at Saint-Gobain (sponsor of the 125th promotion at ESPCI ParisTech), member of the Guidance and Assessment Committee of the ESPCI – Saint-Gobain – École Polytechnique Chair "Sciences of materials and active surfaces", and member of the International Scientific Council of ESPCI ParisTech, has been elected to the Academy of Sciences, in the section "Intersection of the Applications of sciences".
A study financed by the European Commission selected ESPCI ParisTech as a model for best practices in the field of entrepreneurship.
Jean-Francois Roverato, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the École des Ponts ParisTech and CEO of Eiffage has been promoted to the rank of Commander in the National Order of the Legion of Honour.
Elisabeth Dupont-Kerlan, Ingénieure Général des Ponts et Chaussés, delegate to the Association of French regions, Chairperson of the department Ville, environment, transport (VET) at the École has been promoted to the rank of officer of the National Order of Merit.
Alain Ehrlacher, Ingénieur Général des Ponts et Chaussés, teacher at the Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials (GMM) at the Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, has been received into the National Order of Merit. Philippe Courtier presented him with the Knight's insignia on 8 January 2009 during the ceremony of New Year greetings.
Bruno Angles, Engineer General des Ponts et Chaussés, Chairman of the Fondation des Ponts, has been appointed Knight of the Legion of Honour.
December 2008
The Blondel Medal Commission is awarding Isabelle Bloch teacher at TELECOM ParisTech, the Blondel Medal for her remarkable work contributing to the development of the Sciences and Technologies of Information and Communication. This medal was awarded to her on 9 December at a ceremony organised by SEE (The Electricity, Electronics and Information Technologies Society).
Jean-Frédéric Gerbeau, INRIA Paris – Rocquencourt, former student and doctor at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech wins the Pierre Faurre prize of the Institute. The ceremony held in honour of the winners of prizes in computing and applied mathematics will take place on Monday 12 December 2008 at Collège de France.
David Mangin, urban planner and teacher at Ecole des Ponts, ParisTech, will receive the Urban planning Grand prix awarded by Jean-Louis Borloo, Minister of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Territorial planning at Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine, on 16 December 2008.
November 2008
The 2008 winner of the La Recherche prizes awarded the researchers of the applied optics laboratory, a mixed ENSTA/Ecole polytechnique/CNRS research unit. The Energy award was given to Victor Malka, Jérôme Faure and Erik Lefebvre, the Ministry prize was awarded to Valeria Nuzzo.
Athene Donald, a member of the International Scientific Committee of ESPICI ParisTech and Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), is one of the 5 laureates of 2009 of the L’Oréal UNESCO world award “For Women and Science”, "for having contributed to unravelling the mysteries of the physics of disordered materials, ranging from cement to starch”.
Philippe Grangier, director of CNRS research at Institut d’Optique Graduate School and teacher at the Physics Research and Teaching Department at Ecole Polytechnique, received the Jean Ricard (2008) prize from the French Physics Society (Société Francaise de Physique) for his work on quantum optics and quantum information. This prize is intended to reward and encourage the French author of remarkable and original work in the field of physical sciences.
Rémi Habfast, X 2007, has just won the USAIRE Student Award 2008. This 1st prize rewards his essay on the theme “What will be the energy and environmental context in the aeronautical and defence industry in 2030? What will be the consequences on the ambitions for innovation and competitiveness in our industry?".