École Polytechnique hosts a regional final of the 3-Minutes Thesis competition

École polytechnique hosted one of the regional finals of the 3-Minutes Thesis competition, organized for the first time by the Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris), of which École Polytechnique is a founding member.

Ten young researchers, most of whom work in École Polytechnique’s laboratories, presented their thesis topics in a clear, staged three-minute presentation to a panel of judges and a lay audience.

Following a vote by the jury and the public, Marie Sigallon, a PhD student at the Irradiated Solids Laboratory (LSI *) and Elie Kadoche, a PhD student in the IDS department of the Information Processing and Communications Laboratory (LTCI**), have been selected to represent IP Paris at the national semi-final of the competition, to be held in April 2024.

Marie Sigallon's thesis focuses on optimizing the power generation of the piezoelectric polymer PVDF when subjected to deformations, in order to develop a coating able to produce electricity simply by walking on it.

Elie Kadoche's work focuses on the development of control algorithms based on multi-agent reinforcement learning for the optimization of large-scale wind farms.

The 3-Minutes Thesis national competition, organized for the past ten years in France by France Universités and CNRS, enables doctoral students to present their research in French, in simple, concise and convincing terms, to a diverse audience in three minutes, using a single visual support.

The common objective of all the French-speaking countries participating in the competition is to highlight young researchers by drawing the public's attention to current research. The competition begins with the selection of representatives from each participating university, which may be open to the non-scientific public. Competitions are organized between candidates from different universities, followed by national finals and an international final.

23 LABORATORIES

Drawing on its 23 laboratories and more than 1,800 staff, research at École Polytechnique, which is part of the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, feeds into the teaching provided by the School's teaching and research departments.

True to its tradition of excellence and service to the common good, École Polytechnique is pursuing its involvement in fundamental research, while stepping up its commitment to the fight against global warming and to the major challenges of data science and artificial intelligence, the energy transition and bioengineering.

From the outset, École Polytechnique has promoted the need to combine excellent academic education with cutting-edge scientific and technological research. Thanks to a top-notch academic body that works on both the creation and transmission of science, engineering students at École Polytechnique acquire an exceptional base of scientific knowledge, resting on solid mathematical foundations that constitute the École Polytechnique's scientific signature, recognized worldwide.

Nearly a third of polytechnic engineers go on to earn a doctorate, contributing to France's scientific and technological influence. Three quarters of polytechnic engineers who have opted for a doctorate pursue it in France, while the remaining quarter choose to illustrate French excellence abroad.

Nearly a third of graduates from X's Masters in Science and Technology also go on to doctoral studies, mainly in Physics, Computer Science (18%) and Applied Mathematics.

*LSI - A joint research unit CEA, CNRS, École Polytechnique - Institut Polytechnique de Paris 

**LTCI - A research laboratory of Télécom Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris