Portraits of theUM

Matthieu Lengaigne, a research director at the Marbec laboratory—which is overseen by the University of Montpellier—is a co-recipient of the ERC Synergy Harvest grant. This project will take him off the coast of the Tonga Islands to understand and model the role of iron released by undersea volcanoes in phytoplankton growth.

Elected director of Montpellier Management in March 2026, Anne Mione is taking charge of her institution’s AACSB international accreditation process. This is a perfect fit for the University of Montpellier professor, who has devoted her research to the study of standards and certifications.

An internationally renowned American plant pathologist, Jan E. Leach has dedicated her career to rice diseases, sustainable plant resistance, and the effects of climate change on plant health. A distinguished university professor and emeritus researcher at Colorado State University, as well as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Montpellier on April 3, 2026.

Isabelle Olivieri, a researcher at ISEM who passed away ten years ago, is a leading figure in evolutionary ecology in Montpellier. Her team’s pioneering work is being carried on by the younger generations she inspired by defending—sometimes fiercely—her convictions. She will be among the 72 women scientists whose names will join those of the scholars of the Eiffel Tower, engraved 65 meters above the ground.

In a few days, environmental economist Zhi Li will return to Xiamen University in China. After a six-month stay in Montpellier as part of the MAK’IT Institute’s “Visiting Scholar” program, he plans to continue the various collaborations he has initiated with laboratories in the Hérault region.

Pauline Roques has had a career path unlike any other, juggling her doctoral thesis in marketing at the University of Montpellier with an international career as a champion in artistic roller skating. She looks back on those busy years, which culminated in a Ph.D. and several roller skating titles.

Thanks to groundbreaking findings on semiconductor nanostructures—and in particular on the physical properties of boron nitride—physicist Guillaume Cassabois of the Charles Coulomb Laboratory at theUM has just been awarded the 2025 Jean Ricard Grand Prize by the French Physical Society. While the award recognizes an individual achievement, the researcher emphasizes the importance of the team throughout his research.

A political scientist at theUM, Laura Michel has been coordinating a research group focused entirely on the social sciences and humanities and dedicated to public transition policies since 2024. This role led to her appointment as director of the Mak’it program, the Montpellier Institute for Advanced Studies, which specializes precisely in transition.

Irène Georgescu, a professor at Montpellier Management, is researching the resilience of healthcare professionals. This work earned her a 5.6 million euro European Research Innovation Action grant in 2025.

Madhur Anand, an ecologist and professor at the University of Guelph in Canada, bridges the gap between science and the arts, even in her own work. A modeler and author, she is taking advantage of her visit to Montpellier in the first semester of 2025 to combine interdisciplinary seminars with book signings at the Comédie du livre.

Tomasz Hueckel, professor emeritus at Duke University (Durham, North Carolina, United States), has joined the growing community of honorary doctorate recipients at the University of Montpellier. An engineer, researcher, and educator, he has been collaborating with teams at the University of Montpellier for more than 15 years, particularly those at the Laboratory of Mechanics and Civil Engineering (LMGC). The ceremony on May 16, 2025, provided an opportunity to trace his journey step by step, from his native Poland to the United States, as well as to highlight his significant contributions to the field of civil and environmental engineering.

Noémie Coulon, a postdoctoral researcher at the Marbec laboratory, is one of nine young researchers selected by the Ocean Institute to cover the One Ocean Science Congress in Nice in early June. This task is a perfect fit for this specialist in the impact of climate change on rays and sharks in Europe.