BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1959, Alain Pumir was a student at the École normale supérieure in Paris in 1979. He obtained the "agrégation" of Physics in 1983 and a state thesis in 1987 – Three-dimensional vortices and interfaces in Hele-Shaw cells – under the guidance of Yves Pomeau.

In 1989, after several years at Cornell University (USA), he joined the Laboratory of Statistical Physics at the ENS in Paris. Between 1992 and 2008, he carried out his research at the non-linear Institute of Nice and then at the J. A. Dieudonné laboratory at the University of Nice. In 2008, he joined the physics laboratory of the ENS de Lyon where he is currently Director of Research at the CNRS.

Both a theorist and outstanding mathematician, his research work focuses on turbulence and mixing. These activities cover several topics, such as the study of small scales (large gradients) in high-Reynolds number flows, or particle transport, with applications in particular to cloud microphysics. Another part of his work concerns the modeling of biophysics (self-organization at the level of tissues or cells).