Things are going well for Pauline Roques

The final quarter of 2025 was particularly hectic for Pauline Roques. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, all smiles early in the morning in an IAE office, but the young woman had run a veritable marathon, the finish line of which was her thesis defense on November 13, 2025.“Everything went well; it was a wonderful moment,” she recalls with obvious pleasure. Those few hours capped off an academic journey that went off without a hitch.

The Dark Side of Management

After completing a technical college program in business administration in Montpellier, 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 then looked into the thesis topics listed on the doctoral school of economics and management’s website and came across the topic proposed by Anne-Sophie Cases and David Vidal. Once she secured her scholarship, Pauline Roques began her thesis in late 2021, which will be titled“Between Digital Surveillance and Privacy Protection: The Dark Side of Personal Data Management.”

There’s no trace of the typical PhD student’s isolation when she talks about that time. “My thesis went very well; I was fortunate to have excellent supervision, support, and guidance,” recalls Pauline, who admits to a few brief moments of doubt, “but they didn’t last.” A thesis that went like clockwork—which is not unlike another important aspect of Pauline Roques’s life.

Artistic roller skating

That’s because the young woman is also a top-level athlete in a relatively obscure sport: artistic roller skating.“It’s exactly like figure skating, but on roller skates,” explains the four-time consecutive French champion. She won all those titles while working on her thesis. Since 2022, Pauline’s career has even taken an international turn with her selection for the French national team.

In September 2025, just two months before her thesis defense, the athlete competed in the European Championships held in Italy and finished in^fifth place,“a solid performance ,” she says with satisfaction. As soon as she returned, she“worked tirelessly to finish her thesis manuscript,” then boarded a plane again with her roller skates, heading to Beijing, this time for the World Championships, where Pauline placed^ninth.“Top 5 in Europe and top 10 in the world—that’s good,” smiles the young woman, who arrives at her thesis defense in top form less than a month after returning from China.

International Medal

Was it difficult to juggle these two demanding commitments? “It required a lot of organization, discipline, and perseverance on my part, but I never considered giving up—even temporarily—the sport I’ve been playing since I was six,” replies Pauline Roques. 

Today, Pauline holds a position as a teaching assistant at the IAE, a contract that will end in September 2026. What’s next? “I’d like to find a position as an associate professor in Montpellier—and why not win an international medal in skating?” We wish her just one thing: smooth sailing.