Catherine Bréchignac is a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

. She is an Officer of the Légion d'honneur

Légion d'honneur

The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...

, President of the International Council for Science

International Council for Science

The International Council for Science , formerly the International Council of Scientific Unions, was founded in 1931 as an international non-governmental organization devoted to international co-operation in the advancement of science...

 and former president of the CNRS ("National Centre for Scientific Research"), Europe's largest scientific body. The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

says she has "a formidable reputation for determination, decisiveness and an aptitude for analysing and clarifying complex matters." As a president of the CNRS, she was responsible for 25,000 employees, 12,000 of whom are researchers, and a budget of 2.42 billion Euros.
Daughter of the physicist Jean Teillac and alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure de Fontenay-aux-Roses

École Normale Supérieure de Lyon

The École Normale Supérieure de Lyon is a highly selective grande école located in Lyon, France. As one of France's three Écoles normales supérieures, ENS Lyon is associated with a strong French tradition of excellence and public service...

, Catherine Bréchignac received her DEA (Masters-level qualification) at the Faculté des sciences d'Orsay in 1971, her doctorate in 1977, and became a Research Director in 1985.