École normale supérieure de Lyon

CIRI PhD student Amandine Chantharath and LIP PhD student Anne Gagneux are winners of the 20th edition of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science France Award, the winners of which were announced on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. Thumbnail: From left to right: Anne Gagneux © All rights reserved and Amandine Chantharath © Elisa Llop

In September 2026, RDP researcher Thomas Widiez received the Early Career Research Award in Plant Reproduction. Presented by the International Association of Sexual Plant Reproduction Research (IASPRR), this award recognizes researchers for work carried out during the first ten years of their careers, the originality and impact of which have left a lasting mark on research in plant reproduction. Photo credit: © IASPRR

CERGIC postdoctoral researcher Kenza Elass won the “Young Researcher Prize,” awarded by the University of Luxembourg for her article “What Do Women Want in a Job?”

Romain Graziani, professor of Chinese studies at ENS de Lyon and researcher at the Institute of East Asian Studies; and Henning Samtleben, professor of Physics at ENS de Lyon and member of LPENSL, were appointed senior members of the Institut Universitaire de France on May 21, 2026. Ten alumni of the School were also appointed.

At the ENC Conference, the largest international conference on magnetic resonance, Guido Pintacuda, CNRS Research Director and Director of the High-Field NMR Center, was awarded the Günther Laukien Prize, which recognizes innovative experimental research in NMR with high potential.

On April 16, the CNRS announced the recipients of its 2026 medals. Among them are three members of ENS de Lyon laboratories: Sébastien Manneville, professor at LPENSL (silver medal); Charlotte Kirchhelle, an INRAE research fellow at the RDP laboratory (bronze medal); and Lucien Derainne, a junior professor at IHRIM (bronze medal).

Audrey Bienfait, a CNRS research associate at ENS de Lyon's Physics laboratory (LPENSL/CNRS/ENS de Lyon), is one of three recipients of the first Young Researchers Award for Excellence, established in 2025 by the CFM Foundation for Research. Photo credit: © Nil Hoppenot

On Thursday, April 2, 2026, CRAL's young researcher Armand Leclerc was awarded the European Astrophysical Society (EAS) MERAC Prize for the best PhD thesis in Theoretical Astrophysics.

Olivier Hamant, INRAE Research Director at the Plant Reproduction and Development Laboratory and Director of the Michel Serres Institute, was awarded an honorary doctorate by UC Louvain (Université Catholique de Louvain) on Thursday, February 12, 2026, alongside Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian-Canadian doctor and professor, and Salomé Saqué, a French journalist. The 2026 edition of this award, the highest distinction a university can bestow on a foreign personality, was held under the theme “Enlighten to understand, resist to move forward.” 
Learn more about Olivier Hamant, his work, and his commitment, as seen from UC Louvain.

Henri Chamoux, research engineer at LARHRA, is the winner of the 2026 Independent Initiatives Award from ARSC – the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. This award recognizes his invention of Archéophone, the first professional cylinder transfer platform, and the creation of Phonobase, a website that provides access to thousands of sound recordings for preservation purposes. Thumbnail credit: Henri Chamoux / LARHRA / CNRS

Maud Ventura, who holds a Master's degree in philosophy from École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, has recently won one of the 2025 Encouragement Awards for Young Writers, presented by the Simone and Cino Del Duca Foundation on the recommendation of the Académie Française Awards Committee.

Natacha Gillet, a researcher at the ENS Lyon Chemistry Laboratory (LCH), is one of 18 winners of the Émergence 2026 program, which supports researchers with innovative projects in the field of chemistry.

François Rousset, researcher at the International Research Center in Infectious Diseases (CIRI) and head of the “Molecular Genomics of Microorganisms” team, was awarded the Paoletti Prize on January 7, 2026, a prize that recognizes promising young scientists in all fields of biology. Photo credit © CNRS

On Monday, December 15, 2025, at Université Lyon 2, the Rhône Auvergne delegation held its CNRS 2025 Talent Awards ceremony. Among the winners were four members of ENS de Lyon! They are Gwyneth Ingram, CNRS researcher and director of the Plant Reproduction and Development Laboratory (silver medal); Benjamin Wesolowski, CNRS research fellow at the Center for Pure and Applied Mathematics (bronze medal); Stéphanie Durand, CNRS researcher and seismologist at LGL-TPE (bronze medal); and Justine Lascar, CNRS research engineer and member of the ICAR laboratory (collective crystal for the RUSHS network). We also extend our congratulations to the alumni of ENS de Lyon who have won two silver medals and six bronze medals.

Romain Graziani, professor of Chinese studies at ENS de Lyon and researcher at the Institut d'Asie Orientale, received the Académie des Belles-Lettres prize and the Sollers prize for his book Les Lois et les Nombres. Photo credit © Gallimard - Francesca Mantovani

At the INRIA - Académie des Sciences 2025 awards ceremony on November 25, Jean-Michel Muller, CNRS research director at LIP - Laboratoire de l'Informatique du Parallélisme (Inria Center in Lyon/CNRS/ENS de Lyon/UCBL), received the highest distinction, the INRIA Grand Prize.

On Monday, November 24, 2025, the team behind the “Les Jardins de la Physique 2.0” project, led by the École de Physique des Houches (Les Houches, CEA/CNRS/ENS de Lyon/Université Grenoble Alpes) in Haute-Savoie and the Institut d'Études Scientifiques de Cargèse (IESC, CNRS/ Université of Corsica Pasquale Paoli / Université Côte d'Azur) was awarded a CNRS Collective Crystal. Photo credit © CNRS Paris-Normandie

Isabelle Baraffe, member of CRAL, Corentin Herbert, member of LPENSL, and Édouard Bonnet, member of LIP, as well as nine alumni of ENS de Lyon – Charles-Édouard Brehier, Émilie Capron, Jeanne Costante (Crassous), Éric Falcon, Louis Fayard, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Yvon Maday, Hubert Saleur, and Jérémie Szeftel – have been distinguished at the 2025 French Academy of Sciences awards ceremony. Thumbnail photo © All rights reserved.

Léa Chazot Franguiadakis, researcher at LPENSL, and entrepreneur Typhaine Brual, incubated at ENS de Lyon, are among the winners of the French Government’s Innovation Competition, in the i-PhD category, which supports the development of emerging start-ups.

Kshama Sharma, a postdoctoral researcher at the CRMN, is among the 2025 winners of the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Young Talents Award, a recognition that supports young female researchers in their careers.

This year, 23 alumni and one teacher-researcher from the Computer Science department have been named members of the Institut Universitaire de France, for a 5-year term starting October 1, 2025, representing 12% of those appointed. This is a wonderful recognition for each and every one of them, and for our school. We offer them our warmest congratulations.

Congratulations to Élise Tendron, who has been awarded the Dissertation Prize by the Société Française Shakespeare, recognizing the best Master’s thesis (M1 or M2) of the year.

Congratulations to Alice de Nanteuil, who has been awarded the prize from the Society for Anglo-American Studies of the 17th and 18th Centuries.

On April 29, 2025, the Société Chimique de France awarded its prizes, including the Prix Pierre Süe 2023 to Anne Lesage, a research engineer at the European Center for High-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (CNRS/ENS de Lyon/Université Lyon 1), for her work in developing innovative fundamental methods in solid-state NMR.

Francis Albarède, emeritus professor at ENS de Lyon and member of the LGL-TPE laboratory, has just been elected an international member of the United-States Academy of Sciences.

Norbert Danysz, a PhD student in Chinese Studies at IAO – Institute of East Asian Studies – is among the 2025 recipients of the Fondation des Treilles Young Researchers Award.

Thomas Buchert, professor at the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and member of CRAL's AstroEns team, has been awarded the international Tullio Levi-Civita prize for his innovations in Relativistic Cosmology.

Following the first awards ceremony on the 15th of October, the Académie des Sciences once again celebrated scientific excellence at a second session on the 26th of November 2024 at the Palais de l'Institut de France.

Margot Giacinti and Sarah Jean-Jacques are joint recipients of this PhD thesis award.

On Tuesday October 15, the French Academy of Sciences unveiled its awards. Congratulations to Physics laboratory members Patrice Abry and Laurent Chevillard, and School alumni.

Congratulations to Amélie Joly (IGFL) and Lise Morlet-Decarnin (LPENSL).

The Middle East and Muslim Worlds (MOMM) Scientific Interest Group (GIS) and the Institute for the Study of Islam and Societies of the Muslim World (IISMM) awarded their thesis prizes on September 26, 2024.

Congratulations are in order for physicist Lydéric Bocquet, former doctoral student and later Research Associate at the Physics Laboratory of ENS de Lyon.

ENS de Lyon is honored to have two of its laboratories' researchers elected new EMBO members, namely, Olivier Hamant, INRAE research director, and Teva Vernoux, CNRS research director, both biologists at the RDP.

Francis Albarède Professor emeritus at ENS de Lyon, was appointed Officer of the French National Order of Merit. Isabelle Daniel, Professor at Lyon 1 University and alumna of ENS Lyon, received the Merit Award 2024 from the French Society of Mineralogy and Crystallography.

The Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) has announced its 2024 laureates, among whom the ENS de Lyon is proud to count two of its faculty members. Andrew Pell, Professor in the Department of Chemistry and member of the CRMN, has been elected Junior IUF. Nikolay Tzvetkov, Professor in the Department of Mathematics, member of UMPA, has been elected Senior IUF. 16 alumni of the School have also been elected members of the IUF.

Roland Bacon, CNRS Emeritus Research Director at CRAL, is awarded the EAS 2024 Lodewijk Woltjer Lecture.

The CNRS awards François Leulier, Director of the IGFL, the silver medal and Lucie Étienne, a researcher at CIRI, and three alumni of our school, the bronze medal.

Congratulations to Agathe Faucourt, an alumnus of ENS de Lyon, who has been awarded the master's prize of the RADAC Society (Recherches sur les Arts Dramatiques Anglophones Contemporains - Research on Contemporary English Dramatic Arts) for her M2 dissertation on contemporary English-language theater.

In early February, the European Association of Geochemistry (EAG) awarded the H.C. Urey Prize to Janne Blichert-Toft, CNRS Research Director at LGL-TPE. Janne Blichert-Toft has made a major contribution to the advancement of knowledge in geochemistry, particularly in the study of planetary mantles and the Earth's crust.

Patrick Flandrin, CNRS Research Director Emeritus, member of the Physics Laboratory of ENS de Lyon and member of the French Academy of Sciences, receives the IEEE Signal Processing Society's Carl Friedrich Gauss Education Award 2023, for his contributions to the education in time-frequency-based methods and their mathematical foundations.

Gilles Chabrier, Emeritus CNRS Research Director in CRAL AstroENS team, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Exeter, receives the prestigious Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, for his outstanding contributions to astrophysics and galactic astronomy.

Congratulations to ENS de Lyon Talents, awarded at the regional CNRS Talents ceremony on Tuesday December 19, 2023.

Alain Pumir, CNRS Research Director at ENS de Lyon Physics Laboratory, receives the 2023 Ed Lorenz Lecture Award from the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

On Tuesday November 21, the French Academy of Sciences unveiled its next round of awards. Congratulations to UMPA member Jean-Christophe Mourrat and School alumnus Ludovic Berthier.

Alice Briole, Edwige Cyffers and Aurora Pignata, all graduates of ENS de Lyon, have been awarded grants from the L'Oréal-UNESCO program to support the involvement of young women in scientific research.

Congratulations to Anne L'Huillier, a former student of ENS de Lyon, laureate of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics, alongside Ferenc Krausz and Pierre Agostini.

Congratulations to Samuel Angiboust (geology), Anne Benoit (computer science) and Grégory Miermont (mathematics), as well as to the alumni nominated.