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"My integration process in France was not the easiest. When I arrived in preparatory classes at the École Nationale de Chimie de Rennes with my Chinese baccalaureate, I made a lot of efforts to master the French language. At the end of the second year, I managed to enter the National School of Chemistry in Paris. During my internship, my tutor - a Polish woman, enthusiastic about her job - gave me the image of the person I wanted to become. It is important to give role models to women scientists who, not being very numerous, do not always feel legitimate. Although mentalities are changing, it is still more difficult for women to impose themselves as scientists. In my family, girls were not discriminated against compared to boys. One of the effects of the one-child policy was to promote the education of girls, which developed their free will and allowed them to be economically independent.

Today, as a research engineer at EDF, I work on the ageing of plastics of the polymer family. Nowadays, polymers are everywhere. For my part, I mainly study the polymers present in nuclear power plants, photovoltaic panels and hydroelectric dams in order to predict when they should be changed! I am interested in the most advanced fundamental research results and I collaborate with researchers in academic labs. Internally, I work with technicians to build different methods to characterize the aging of polymers that we can model. For the power plants, the work we are doing will enable us to extend their lifespan from 40 to 60 years! I'm passionate about applied research: starting from an existing problem and providing a practical answer to it, that really gives meaning to this job."

Yan Bian,
Engineer-researcher at EDF

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