Portraits of theUM

Pauline Roques has had a career unlike any other, juggling her marketing dissertation 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 doctorate 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 in transition.

Irène Georgescu, a university professor at Montpellier Management, researches the resilience of healthcare professionals. This research 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), joins the growing community of honorary doctors at the University of Montpellier. An engineer, researcher, and educator, he has been collaborating for more than 15 years with teams at the University of Montpellier, particularly those at the Laboratory of Mechanics and Civil Engineering (LMGC). The ceremony on May 16, 2025, provided an opportunity to trace his career 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.