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. His research also has an impact on mathematical physics, complex analysis and combinatorics. In addition, he makes significant contributions to statistical physics. He also works on the study of stochastic models such as 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.

Laurent Lafforgue works on the Langlands programme, a group of very deep conjectures which, within an arithmetic scope, link up harmonic analysis, Galois theory and algebraic geometry.

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.

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.

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).

Bertrand Eynard is studying theoretical physics. He is mainly interested in random matrices, random geometry, integrable systems or enumerative geometry.

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.

Cédric Deffayet works on theoretical physics, at the interface between cosmology, gravitation (general relativity and its extensions) and high energy theoretical physics, particularly superstring theory.

Ofer Gabber continues to contribute 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.

Jean-Pierre Bourguignon holds an engineering degree from École polytechnique and a PhD in mathematical sciences from University Paris 7. A differential geometer by training, he worked on the mathematical aspects of theoretical 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.

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

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 is studying Arakelov theory of arithmetic surfaces. Together with Henri Gillet (Chicago) he is defining patterns of complex algebraic varieties.

He was awarded the Fields Medal. His work centred mainly on ergodic theory and partial differential equations. He is currently in post at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Jean Bourgain was elected foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences in April 2000.

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.

Oscar 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. He then focused on 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.

He 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. His proposals, often grouped under the name of “catastrophe theory”, were sometimes controversial, but elicited considerable interest from outside the scient­ific community. He spent the rest of his scientific life studying theoretical biology, but mainly Aristotelian philosophy.

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