Jean-Philippe BOUCHAUD, 33, works as an engineer at the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Saclay. A brilliant theoretical physicist, he began his career at the CNRS, in the hertzian spectroscopy laboratory, then moved on to the Statistical mechanics laboratory at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. His research focuses on two main fields: the hydrodynamic properties of quantum fluids with some degree of internal freedom (spin glasses) and classical or quantum transport in disordered media. In particular, he has contributed to improving our understanding of the dynamics of granular environments. Though working at present in a laboratory essentially devoted to experimental research, he continues to conduct extremely advanced theoretical research.

Mathias FINK, 50, is a professor at the University of Paris 7 and member of the Institut universitaire de France. He founded and heads the waves and acoustics laboratory, an associated research unit CNRS-Ecole supérieure de physique et chimie industrielle de la ville de Paris. His research focuses on problems of basic physics concerning wave propagation as well as on the use of the different instruments he has developed for applications in industry and medecine. In the field of basic physics, he has studied reversibility in wave physics, coherence, propagation in a heterogeneous medium and multiple scattering. In applied science, he has made many important contributions to medical imagery, ultrasound therapy (destruction of gallstones), non-destructive control (defect tracking in aeronautics and nuclear industry). He has thus registered a dozen patents. He is one of the best specialists in the world in the field of acoustics.

Department of nuclear and particle physics (IN2P3)

Alain BLONDEL, 42, is a CNRS research director and works at the Laboratory of high energy nuclear physics, an associated CNRS-Ecole polytechnique research unit in Palaiseau. He has carried out extensive research in the physics of weak interactions, from the experiments on neutrinos in Gargamelle, the large-scale bubble chamber at the CERN, in the 1970s, to precision measurements at the CERN's Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP). He has played a very important role in the Aleph collaboration (named after one of the LEP's four detectors). He is one of the authors of the most precise systems for calculating the number of light neutrinos, demonstrating that there are most probably only three families of quarks and leptons in nature. He has also contributed to the beam polarization programmes of the LEP and to accelerator physics.

Department of engineering sciences (SPI)

Ky DANG VAN, 53, CNRS research director, supervises the "Wear and Tear" project at the Laboratory of solid mechanics, an associated CNRS-Ecole polytechnique research unit. He has worked in the field of material wear and tear and in particular he has studied the problem of cracks in mechanical structures. His recent work has focused on damages due to contact, by applying to tribology models and calculation tools. Ky Dang Van's work is valued both by the scientific community and the industrial world, in particular the automobile industry. He has concluded several contracts with Renault, PSA, Fiat, and others. The "Dang Van" criterium introduced 20 years ago to detect "worn out" parts is still widely referred to. Ky Dang Van's work is internationally known, and he was awarded the Wallemberg prize of the Swedish Academy of engineering sciences in 1984, the Letord medal of the Society for the promotion of national industry in 1988 and the Alexandre Darracq prize of the Academy of sciences in 1991.

Bernard DREVILLON, 49, CNRS research director at the Laboratory of interface and thin film physics, a CNRS research unit located at the Ecole polytechnique in Palaiseau. He conducts research in the field of thin film, amorphous or microcrystal semiconductor physics. His main scientific contributions concern the use of ellipsometric techniques in the study of the in situ growth of thin film and the transformation and description of their interfaces.This research has led to partnerships with industrialists and to remarkable technological transfers (registration of patents). Several types of instruments were thus developed: a spectroscopic ellipsometer in visible UV, an ellipsometer with phase modulation in spectroscopic anisotropic reflectance, an infrared ellipsometer and an infrared ellipsometer with Fourier transformation.

Hél&egravene BARBIER-BRYGOO, 41, CNRS research director and co-supervisor of the team "Reception and transduction of signals" at the Institut des sciences végétales, a CNRS research unit in Gif-sur-Yvette. In the field of plant biology, she studies the auxin hormone, a hormone which regulates the growth and differentiation process in plants. Her research is based on functional tests which make it possible to determine cell responses to auxins at a very early stage, in particular at the plasma membrane level. This has enabled her to identify certain elements of the cell signalization cascade (auxin receptor, ionic channels) and study how they are regulated, in order to replace them in the context of cell physiology and plant growth.

Christian CAMBILLAU, 44, CNRS research director, supervises the Laboratory of crystallography and crystallization of biological macromolecules, an associated CNRS-University of Aix-Marseille 2 research unit. He is an international specialist in the field of structural biology (cristallography) and has developed a software for modelling molecules using data from X or RMN rays, making France one of the very few countries to have developed software in the field of biological crystallography. His most innovative and spectacular work concerns the interactions between proteins and sugars (structural glycobiology) and the structural analysis of lipases (enzymes which hydrolyse fat). Thus, he was able to crystallize for the first time a lectin and glycoprotein complex, making it possible to carry out a precise three-dimensional analysis of interactions between proteins and complex sugars. He has also described the structural movements which can activate pancreatic lipase in the presence of its lipid substrate. This research is extremely important from both a medical and a biotechnological point of view.

Marc LABURTHE, 46, CNRS research director, supervises the Laboratory of neurendocrinology and digestive cell biology, an INSERM research unit at the Xavier Bichat School of Medecine in Paris. For more than twenty years, as the new field of neuroendicrinology of the digestive system gradually developed, he studied peptide hormones and neuropeptides. Marc Laburthe has discovered, purified and cloned new peptidergic receptors and studied them in the intestinal cell differentiation process and in colon cancers. His basic research has been applied to peptide pharmacology or to their synthetic analogs on cells suffering from serious diseases - cancers, inflammatory dieases and hydric diarrhea -, leading to the development of new drugs.

Serge LAROCHE, 43, CNRS research director, supervises the Laboratory of neurobiology of learning processes and memory, an associated CNRS-University of Paris 11 research unit located in Orsay. He has collaborated with the best international teams in the field. Serge Laroche studies plasticity phenomena which may play a role in the formation and storage of "traces" or "representations" of memory within the brain. His research focuses on the definition of the nature of these traces, as well as the basic mechanisms at work in their construction, storage and recall. Two regions of the brain have been pinpointed as playing a significant part: the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. He has obtained significant results in the field of synaptic modifications, the neurochemical and molecular mechanisms involved in learning and memorization processes. Serge Laroche is thus a leading world specialist in the field.

Jean-Marie BEAU, 47, is a professor at the University of Paris Sud and is head of the Laboratory of biomolecular synthesis, an associated CNRS-University of Paris 11 research unit in Orsay. He specializes in the organic chemistry (synthetic and structural) of natural substances and is particularly interested in the chemistry of sugars. He has been working on total synthesis of natural substances in two areas: the synthesis of biologically active oligosaccharides and the preparation of complex, optically active molecules from sugars. His numerous syntheses have been applied to the fields of health (antitumor or antiviral compounds, antifungal substances or anti-thrombotic molecules) and agrobiology (symbiotic recgnition signals). He is one of the most productive synthetic chemists of his generation.

Clément SANCHEZ, 46, is a CNRS research director at the Laboratory of chemistry and condensed matter, an associated CNRS-University of Paris 6 research unit. He is a specialist in the chemistry of materials and a pioneer of the chemistry of sol-gel processes. He has contributed to the development of the field of organic-non organic hybrid materials. His research focuses more specifically on the synthesis and the study of the electronic properties of these materials. He is also one of the first to have elaborated different characterization techniques (RMN, RPE, X absorption, scattering, etc.) to study all the stages of the formation of these compounds, from the molecular precursor to gels, and on to materials. Controlling the mineral polymerization and aggregation processes makes it possible to change the structure and texture of materials according to need. This process should make it soon possible to create made-to-order materials.

CLaude JAUPART, 41, is a professor at the University of Paris 7 and supervises the team "Physical volcanology" of the Laboratory of geochemistry and cosmochemistry, an associated research unit CNRS-Institut de physique du globe de Paris-Universités Paris 6-Paris 7. Claude Jaupart has opened new scientific avenues in the fields of earth mantle dynamics and volcanic eruptions. His field work in Canada has shown that cratonic lithospheres, which are the oldest, are very thick and that the various age layers do not differ much. Thanks to unique laboratory experiments, he has furthered the understanding of eruption dynamics. Both a field geophysicist and an internationally recognized theoretician, he was awarded in 1993 the Wager prize of the International Volcanology Association. He is chairman of the Scientific committee of the "Natural risks" programme of the Institute of Sciences of the Universe.

Bernard LEGRAS, 40, is a CNRS research director at the Laboratory of dynamic meteorology, a CNRS research unit located in Palaiseau. His interest in natural phenomena led him to study the "blocking phenomenon" which in temperate regions can generate cold spells lasting several weeks. He has shown that despite the chaotic dynamics of large scale atmospheric phenomena, one can observe preferred states, thus making it possible to forecast weather beyond the two-week limit. He developed new statistical dynamic approaches which are particularly effective in explaining how the block is maintained by transitional atmospheric phenomena. He is the founder of the French school of research on this topic, which has gained international renown. More recently, Bernard Legras has been studying the erosion of whirlwinds provoked by the creation of filaments. He is now working on the application of this research to stratospheric dynamics and on combining his work with physics and chemistry, especially as concerns the polar vortex, which has high gradient filaments.

Philippe DESCOLA, 49, is thesis adviser at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, at the Laboratory of social anthropology, a mixed CNRS-EHESS research unit. His ethnological research has been centered on field work with the Shuar Jivaros in Ecuador. His doctoral thesis, published under the title La nature domestique, and supervised by Claude Lévi-Strauss, has become a work of reference. He has published numerous works and founded a new field of research: comparative anthropology of the socialization of nature. His last work, Les lances du crépuscule, written for the non-specialized public, is devoted to this "symbolic ecology".

Michel LAUNEY, 53, professor, director of the department of linguistics at the University of Paris 7, is both a field linguist and a theoretician. He is the director of the review Amérindia, and is the head of the Native American linguistics center, an associated CNRS-University of Paris 7 research unit. He is the author of the following works: Grammaire omniprédicative: morphologie du nahuatl "classique", published by the CNRS in 1994 (Nahuatl is an American Indian language spoken in Mexico), and Introduction à la langue et la littérature aztèques. Michel Launey's research is thus an important contribution to linguistics not only in the strict sense of the term, but also from an ethnosemantic point of view, through the recognition and study of lesser-known languages.

Bruno SOLNIK, 48, is professor at HEC, where he combines both research and teaching duties in the field of economics and finance. His research focuses on financial markets and their international integration. He has thus demonstrated the necessity of diversifying investments. In 1974, he developed th first model for the valuation of assets in an integrated market, taking into account exchange risks. He has published theoretical and statistical articles in numerous international reviews, on the topic of asset valuation and investors' behaviour, depending on their nationality and attitude towards risk.