Things are going well for Pauline Roques

The last quarter of 2025 was particularly busy for Pauline Roques. You wouldn't know it from her cheerful smile early in the morning in an IAE office, but the young woman had run a veritable marathon, the finish line of which was the defense of her thesis on November 13, 2025. "Everything went well, it was a wonderful moment," she recalls with obvious pleasure. Those few hours were the culmination of an academic career that had gone without a hitch.

The dark side of management

After completing a technical degree in business at Montpellier University, Pauline Roques went on to earn a bachelor's degree in marketing and sales, followed by a master's degree in strategic product and brand marketing at Montpellier Management. Not entirely convinced by the prospect of a career in the corporate world, the student looked at the thesis topics proposed on the doctoral school's economics and management website and came across the topic proposed by Anne-Sophie Cases and David Vidal. Once she secured her scholarship, Pauline Roques began her thesis at the end of 2021, which will be entitled "Between digital surveillance and privacy protection: the dark side of personal data management."

The doctoral student feels no loneliness when she recalls this period. "My thesis went very well. I was lucky to have excellent supervision, support, and guidance," recalls Pauline, who admits to a few brief moments of doubt, "but they didn't last." Her thesis went smoothly, which is reminiscent of another important aspect of Pauline Roques's life.

Artistic roller skating

The young woman is also a high-level athlete in a relatively obscure discipline: artistic roller skating. "It's exactly like figure skating, but with roller skates," explains the four-time consecutive French champion. She won all four titles while working on her thesis. Since 2022, Pauline's career has even taken an international turn with her inclusion in the French national team.

In September 2025, just two months before her thesis defense, the athlete competed in the European Championships in Italy and finished in^fifth place, "a good performance ," she says. As soon as she returned, she "worked hard to finish her thesis," then got back on a plane with her roller skates, this time heading to Beijing for the World Championships, where Pauline finished^ninth. "Top 5 in Europe and top 10 in the world, that's good," smiles the young woman, who was in top form for her thesis defense less than a month after her return from China.

International medal

Was it difficult to juggle these two demanding careers? "It required a lot of organization, discipline, and perseverance, but I couldn't imagine giving up, even temporarily, the sport I've been playing since I was six years old," replies Pauline Roques. 

Today, Pauline holds a position as an assistant professor at IAE, a contract that will end in September 2026. And after that? "I'd like to find a position as a senior lecturer in Montpellier and, why not, win an international medal in skating." We wish her only one thing: that everything goes smoothly.