Professors

Thibault Damour is a theoretical physicist who works on Einstein's general relativity theory, cosmology and the new gravitation concepts suggested by the unification of general relativity and quantum theory defined by string theory.

Hugo Duminil-Copin is a probabilist. He works on statistical mechanics models such as percolation, the Ising model, the Potts model in 2 or 3 dimensions, random walks in random environments.

Maxim Kontsevich belongs to a new generation of mathematicians who have been able to integrate in their area of work aspects of quantum theory, opening up radically new perspectives.

Vasily Pestun is a theoretical physicist who works in the field of quantum field theory and string theory, researching the dynamics of strongly interacting supersymmetric gauge theories and conformal field theories in various dimensions.

A mathematician, his area of research is algebraic geometry and arithmetic. He graduated from École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (class of 1985) and holds a PhD in Mathematical Sciences from Université Paris-Sud (1992).

Laure Saint-Raymond’s work focuses mainly on the asymptotic analysis of systems of partial differential equations, in particular those governing the dynamics of gases, plasmas, and fluids.

Slava Rychkov is a theoretical physicist developing approaches to strongly coupled quantum and conformal field theories which are not exactly solvable, with applications to high energy, statistical and condensed matter physics.

Ahmed Abbes mainly studies geometrical and cohomological properties of sheaves on varieties on perfect fields of characteristic p>0 or on p-adic fields, designed for applications in arithmetic and algebraic geometry.

Ofer Gabber is a mathematician who contributes to various topics in algebra and algebraic geometry, such as étale cohomology, logarithmic geometry, alterations of schemes and the theory of pseudo-reductive groups.

Fanny Kassel studies geometric, dynamical, and spectral aspects of discrete subgroups of Lie groups. She is particularly interested in actions of discrete groups on homogeneous spaces, in relation to geometric structures on manifolds and to higher Teichmüller-Thurston theory.

Frank Merle is studying the singularities of non-linear partial differential equations. Member at Université de Cergy-Pontoise of the CNRS "Analysis, geometry and modelization" lab (UMR 8088), his research themes that arise out of hard analysis and have an important impact on mathematical physics.­­

After pioneering contributions on operator algebras, Alain Connes developed an ambitious programme aimed at founding a "noncommutative geometry".

Jean-Pierre Bourguignon holds an engineering degree from École Polytechnique (year group 1966) and a Ph.D. in mathematical sciences from University Paris 7 (1974). His field of predilection is differential geometry, particularly in its relations with partial differential equations and mathematical physics.

Mikhail Gromov has totally reshaped geometry, by showing how important it was to take into account systematically and in their entirety objects less regular than those normally considered by geometers.

David Ruelle has proved a structure theorem about a class of polynomials which appear in the well-known Circle Theorem of Lee and Yang. Otherwise, he has worked mainly on the problem of linear response in differentiable dynamics, and its applications to nonequilibrium statistical mechanics.

Christophe Soulé studies Arakelov theory of arithmetic surfaces.

Jean Bourgain was awarded the Fields Medal in 1994. He mainly worked on ergodic theory and partial differential equations. After leaving IHES, he held a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, until his death in 2018. Jean Bourgain was elected foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences in April 2000 and in 2016 he was awarded the Antonio Feltinelli prize by the Italian Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.

Pierre Deligne continued the work on algebraic geometry initiated by Alexander Grothendieck. A deep understanding of the role cohomology theories play in the study of algebraic varieties is due to him.

Jean Dieudonné was a specialist in group theory, topology and functional analysis. He was the great “scribe” of French mathematics, writing the works of Bourbaki and Grothendieck.

Jürg Fröhlich works on quantum field theory (including axiomatic quantum field theory, conformal field theory, and topological quantum field theory), on the precise mathematical treatment of models of statistical mechanics, on theories of phase transition, on the fractional quantum Hall effect, and on non-commutative geometry.

Alexandre Grothendieck set the framework for modern algebraic geometry, which is now universally adopted. His work was further amplified by Pierre Deligne, originally his disciple, who was recruited to IHES at the age of 26 and is now established at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) in Princeton. Thanks to these new tools, it was possible to bring algebraic geometry and number theory together in a decisive way. He wrote the first four chapters of the famous “Éléments de Géométrie Algébrique” with Jean Dieudonné from 1960 to 1967.

Laurent Lafforgue became a mathematician mainly through the study of the new algebraic functorial geometry that Alexander Grothendieck created at the end of the 1950s and that he developed at IHES with his collaborators and students.

Oscar E. Lanford III was a professor at the University of Berkeley before joining IHES. He studied how - irreversible - macroscopic evolutions can be deduced from certain - reversible - microscopic models.

Louis Michel worked on the symmetry of the laws of nature, on particle theory, and on the unification of fundamental interactions. Louis Michel was, like Eugene Wigner, one of the great promoters of the use of group theory in physics, both in the theory of elementary particles and in crystallography.

Nikita Nekrasov received his PhD from Princeton University in 1996. A physicist, he is best known for his works at the interface of gauge theories and string theory and on modern mathematical physics, thus enriching all these areas of research.

Dennis Sullivan, an American mathematician, split his research activities between the US and France for years. A topologist, specialised in dynamics, he had a rare gift for promoting exchanges among researchers and motivating them to reach new heights in their thinking.

René Thom covered a huge area of science: starting from topology, the field of mathematics that looks at forms and deformations, he created the “mathematics of morphogenesis”, putting forward models for biology and human sciences.