Sylvie Méléard receives the Irène Joliot-Curie Prize

Professor of Applied Mathematics at École Polytechnique, Sylvie Méléard has been awarded the Prix Irène Joliot-Curie by the French Academy of Sciences, which recognizes a woman who has made an outstanding contribution to research.

The interface between mathematics and biology is a fast-growing field of research, to which Sylvie Méléard has made a major contribution. At first, this probability specialist worked on mathematical models with applications in communications networks or physics. “I then took part in a working group at École Normale Supérieure de Paris organized by a biologist in the early 2000s, who was looking for collaborations with mathematicians. I got hooked,” explains the researcher, who has been Professor of Mathematics at École Polytechnique since 2006 and has been awarded the Irène Joliot-Curie - Woman Scientist of the Year prize.

Her expertise in probability provides biologists with a new and original point of view for studying population dynamics, from the emergence of species to the growth of bacterial populations and the development of cells. Using a formalism that integrates random behavior (birth, mutation, competition, etc.), she and her colleagues design models that provide a mathematical overview of these mechanisms.

At the Center for Applied Mathematics (CMAP*), Sylvie Méléard heads the PEIPS (Population, Evolution and interacting Particle Systems) team. She is also a member of the Inria MERGE project team. “I'm currently working with biologists specializing in bacterial growth and antibiotic resistance, and with medical oncologists on the mechanisms of mutation appearance in leukemia. Thanks to an ERC advanced grant, she is also leading the SINGER project (Stochastic dynamics of sINgle cells: Growth, Emergence and Resistance). “In recent years, biologists have had access to tools for observing single cells, enabling them to see bacterial growths and cell divisions one by one. Our models are ideally suited to these observations”, she adds.

For Sylvie Méléard, exchanges and encounters are an essential part of research. This conviction is the driving force behind the Mathematical Modeling and Biodiversity Chair she has held at École Polytechnique since 2009. A whole network of biologists and mathematicians continues to be built up, with the aim of meeting on a regular basis and funding projects where interactions between the two disciplines are reciprocal.

The Irène Joliot-Curie Prize also aims to highlight the place of women in science, an issue of which Sylvie Méléard is obviously aware. “I try to listen to young women scientists, and to support them when they return from maternity leave, for example,” explains the researcher who has supervised many female thesis students. As part of her ERC project, she is encouraging young female lecturers to come to the laboratory and spend a year doing full-time research.

*CMAP: a joint research unit CNRS, Inria, École Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 91120 Palaiseau, France