简介
Currently Director General of a Landmark European Research Infrastructure in experimental ecology, AnaEE-ERIC (Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystem); see https://www.linkedin.com/company/anaee-analysis-and-experimentation-on-ecosystems/ .
AnaEE is a landmark on the European roadmap of RIs, as well as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), a specific type of intergovernmental organization under European Regulation. AnaEE has experimental stations across Europe, where ecosystems are manipulated to understand the evolution of ecosystem functions and services iunder anthropic pressures, such as pollution, climate change, etc.. We feature most climates in Europe, from sub-arctic to Mediterranean, to tropical, and the main ecosystem types (forests, continental waters, peatlands, agro-ecosystems, etc.).
I coordinate of a large European infrastructure program, AgroServ, aimed at providing research services for the resilience and adaptation of agriculture, and the agroecology transitions. This project federates 11 research infrastructures across Europe (including Swiss and UK), with more than 70 partners, and 145 services for researchers.
After my PhD in space astrophysics, I started my career at the Max Plack Institut for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching bei München, Germany. Then I moved to Toulouse, France, on a permanent CNRS researcher position at the CESR. In 2004, I moved to the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, as Director. There, I consolidated the research in astronomy and geophysics, while introducing a new field, Experimental Ecology. In 2012, I was appointed Director of the newly created Mediterranean Institute for the Risk and Sustainable Development, of the University of Nice, and I joined the ARTEMIS CNRS/OCA laboratory, deeply involved in the discovery and study of Gravitational Waves.
I started in the field of cosmic Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB) that are among the most powerful events in the Universe. We know now that a peculiar class of GRBs are also strong emitters of Gravitational Waves, when the 2 neutron stars that are swinging merge, and collapse in a black hole, while emitting a giant "swan song" in gamma-rays, X-rays, and optical light.
The small telescope network I initiated during the 90s, called TAROT (the French acronym for Rapid Action Telescope for Transient Objects), with 3 instruments in France (Calern), La Réunion, and ESO La Silla Chile, have made numerous observation of GRBs.
They are also used for the detection and follow-up of satellites and orbital debris, an activity known as Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST), under contract with the CNES, the French Space Agency.
