photographist

“Very early on, I loved mathematics. I have memories of wonderful books in elementary school. My PhD in theoretical computer science was about discrete models of program execution, which led to the study of how programs running in parallel can synchronize with each other and obtain (or not) the right result. During my post-doc in Oslo, I worked on the same idea of program run traces, focusing this time on distributed system specifications. Then, I moved on to the specification of security properties for portable devices including cell phones, smart cards, and RFID, still with theoretical models but increasingly applied to concrete objects. I am currently director of the Paris - Rocquencourt Research Center where about 40 teams of researchers work on applied mathematics and computer science.

My role is to develop a good environment for researchers in which they can achieve their goals. The Institute defines its strategic plan with a number of important research domains in which researchers propose scientific projects and put together the “project-teams “ that are at the core of Inria. These project-teams are created for four years and are then evaluated and renewed (or not). Ongoing activities include applications of mathematics to biology, the organization of mobile networks, the structure of social networks, and middleware allowing the interaction of heterogeneous objects, for example. We also conduct research on security and issues linked to privacy. No program can be 100% secure, and it is important that, before launching an application, users are aware of what they can expect, which data they can safely input, and what can happen to that data.”

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