List of École Normale Supérieure people
Encyclopedia
Here follows a list of notable alumni and faculty of the École Normale Supérieure
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were educated at the École Normale Supérieure
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
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Nobel laureates
- Henri BergsonHenri BergsonHenri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
(1878) (1927 Nobel Prize in LiteratureNobel Prize in LiteratureSince 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
) - Claude Cohen-TannoudjiClaude Cohen-TannoudjiClaude Cohen-Tannoudji is a French physicist and Nobel Laureate. He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Chu and William Daniel Phillips for research in methods of laser cooling and trapping atoms...
(1953, 1997 Nobel Prize in PhysicsNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
) - Gérard DebreuGerard DebreuGérard Debreu was a French economist and mathematician, who also came to have United States citizenship. Best known as a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he began work in 1962, he won the 1983 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.-Biography:His father was the...
(1941) (1983 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) - Pierre-Gilles de GennesPierre-Gilles de GennesPierre-Gilles de Gennes was a French physicist and the Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 1991.-Biography:...
(1951, 1991 Nobel Prize in PhysicsNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
) - Albert FertAlbert FertAlbert Fert is a French physicist and one of the discoverers of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disks...
(1957, 2007 Nobel Prize in PhysicsNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
) - Alfred KastlerAlfred KastlerAlfred Kastler was a French physicist, and Nobel Prize laureate.Kastler was born in Guebwiller and later attended the Lycée Bartholdi in Colmar, Alsace, and École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1921...
(1921, 1966 Nobel Prize in PhysicsNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
) - Gabriel LippmannGabriel LippmannJonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann was a Franco-Luxembourgish physicist and inventor, and Nobel laureate in physics for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference....
(1868, 1908 Nobel Prize in PhysicsNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
) - Louis Néel (1924, 1970 Nobel Prize in PhysicsNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
) - Jean-Baptiste Perrin (1891, 1926 Nobel Prize in PhysicsNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
) - Romain RollandRomain RollandRomain Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.-Biography:...
(1886, 1915 Nobel Prize in LiteratureNobel Prize in LiteratureSince 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
) - Paul SabatierPaul Sabatier (chemist)Paul Sabatier FRS was a French chemist, born at Carcassonne. He taught science classes most of his life before he became Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Toulouse in 1905....
(1874, 1912 Nobel Prize in ChemistryNobel Prize in ChemistryThe Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
) - Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
(1924, declined 1964 Nobel Prize in LiteratureNobel Prize in LiteratureSince 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
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Fields Medal laureates
All French holders of the Fields MedalFields Medal
The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...
were educated at the École Normale Supérieure
- Laurent SchwartzLaurent SchwartzLaurent-Moïse Schwartz was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields medal in 1950 for his work...
(1934): 1950 Fields Medalist - Jean-Pierre SerreJean-Pierre SerreJean-Pierre Serre is a French mathematician. He has made contributions in the fields of algebraic geometry, number theory, and topology.-Early years:...
(1945): 1954 Fields Medalist - René ThomRené ThomRené Frédéric Thom was a French mathematician. He made his reputation as a topologist, moving on to aspects of what would be called singularity theory; he became world-famous among the wider academic community and the educated general public for one aspect of this latter interest, his work as...
(1943): 1958 Fields Medalist - Alain ConnesAlain ConnesAlain Connes is a French mathematician, currently Professor at the Collège de France, IHÉS, The Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University.-Work:...
(1966): 1982 Fields Medalist - Jean-Christophe YoccozJean-Christophe YoccozJean-Christophe Yoccoz is a French mathematician. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1994, for his work on dynamical systems.-Biography:...
(1975): 1994 Fields Medalist - Pierre-Louis LionsPierre-Louis LionsPierre-Louis Lions is a French mathematician. His parents were Jacques-Louis Lions, a mathematician and at that time professor at the University of Nancy, who in particular became President of the International Mathematical Union, and Andrée Olivier, his wife...
(1975): 1994 Fields Medalist - Laurent LafforgueLaurent LafforgueLaurent Lafforgue is a French mathematician.He won 2 silver medals at International Mathematical Olympiad in 1984 and 1985....
(1986): 2002 Fields Medalist - Wendelin WernerWendelin WernerWendelin Werner is a German-born French mathematician working in the area of self-avoiding random walks, Schramm-Loewner evolution, and related theories in probability theory and mathematical physics. In 2006, at the 25th International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Spain he received the...
(1987): 2006 Fields Medalist - Cédric VillaniCédric VillaniCédric Villani is a French mathematician working primarily on partial differential equations and mathematical physics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010.-Biography:...
(1992): 2010 Fields Medalist - Ngô Bảo ChâuNgo Bao ChauNgô Bảo Châu is a Vietnamese and French mathematician at the University of Chicago, best known for proving the fundamental lemma for automorphic forms proposed by Robert Langlands and Diana Shelstad. He is the first Vietnamese to receive the Fields Medal.- Biography :Chau was born in 1972, the...
(1992): 2010 Fields Medalist
Medicine and biology
- Stanislas DehaeneStanislas DehaeneStanislas Dehaene is a professor at the Collège de France, author, and director of INSERM . He has worked on a number of topics, including numerical cognition, the neural basis of reading and the neural correlates of consciousness. Dehaene was one of ten people to be awarded the James S...
(1984) (Current Chair of Experimental Psychology at the Collège de FranceCollège de FranceThe Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
) - Louis PasteurLouis PasteurLouis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax. His experiments...
(1843), chemist and microbiologist, confirmed the germ theory of diseaseGerm theory of diseaseThe germ theory of disease, also called the pathogenic theory of medicine, is a theory that proposes that microorganisms are the cause of many diseases...
Physics
- Édouard BranlyEdouard BranlyÉdouard Eugène Désiré Branly was a French inventor, physicist and professor at the Institut Catholique de Paris. He is primarily known for his early involvement in wireless telegraphy and his invention of the Branly coherer around 1890.-Biography:The coherer was the first widely used detector for...
(1865) - Marcel BrillouinMarcel BrillouinLouis "Marcel" Brillouin was a French physicist and mathematician.Born in Melle, Deux-Sèvres, France, his father was a painter who moved to Paris when Marcel was a boy. There he attended the Lycée Condorcet. The Brillouin family returned to Melle during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to escape...
(1878) - Léon BrillouinLéon BrillouinLéon Nicolas Brillouin was a French physicist. He made contributions to quantum mechanics, radio wave propagation in the atmosphere, solid state physics, and information theory.-Early life:...
- Hubert CurienHubert CurienHubert Curien was a French physicist and a key figure in European science politics, as the President of CERN , the first chairman of the European Space Agency , and second President of the Academia Europæa and a President of Fondation de France.-Biography:Born in Cornimont, Vosges in Lorraine,...
(1945) - Thomas FinkThomas FinkThomas Fink is an Anglo-American physicist who has authored a number of journal articles on statistical and biological physics and two popular books. He is a Chargé de Recherche at CNRS/Institut Curie and when not in Paris lives in London....
- Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier
- Paul LangevinPaul LangevinPaul Langevin was a prominent French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an antifascist organization created in the wake of the 6 February 1934 far right riots...
(1894) - Yves RocardYves RocardYves-André Rocard was a French physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb for France.After obtaining a double doctorate in mathematics and physics he was awarded the professorship in electronic physics at the École normale supérieure in Paris.As a member of a Resistance group during the Second...
- Georges SagnacGeorges SagnacGeorges Sagnac was a French physicist who lent his name to the Sagnac effect, a phenomenon which is at the basis of interferometers and ring laser gyroscopes developed since the 1970s. Sagnac died at Meudon-Bellevue....
(1889)
Mathematics
- Paul Emile AppellPaul Émile AppellPaul Appell , also known as Paul Émile Appel, was a French mathematician and Rector of the University of Paris...
(1872) - Cahit ArfCahit ArfCahit Arf was a Turkish mathematician. He is known for the Arf invariant of a quadratic form in characteristic 2 in topology, the Hasse–Arf theorem in ramification theory, Arf semigroups, and Arf rings.-Biography:Cahit Arf was born on 11 October 1910 in Selanik , which was then...
(1932) - René-Louis BaireRené-Louis BaireRené-Louis Baire was a French mathematician most famous for his Baire category theorem, which helped to generalize and prove future theorems...
- Émile BorelÉmile BorelFélix Édouard Justin Émile Borel was a French mathematician and politician.Borel was born in Saint-Affrique, Aveyron. Along with René-Louis Baire and Henri Lebesgue, he was among the pioneers of measure theory and its application to probability theory. The concept of a Borel set is named in his...
(1889) - François BruhatFrançois BruhatFrançois Georges René Bruhat was a French mathematician who worked on algebraic groups. The Bruhat order of a Weyl group, the Bruhat decomposition, and the Schwartz–Bruhat functions are named after him....
- Élie CartanÉlie CartanÉlie Joseph Cartan was an influential French mathematician, who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups and their geometric applications...
(1888) - Henri CartanHenri CartanHenri Paul Cartan was a French mathematician with substantial contributions in algebraic topology. He was the son of the French mathematician Élie Cartan.-Life:...
(1923), cofounder of Bourbaki - Pierre CartierPierre CartierPierre Cartier may refer to:* Pierre Cartier * Pierre Cartier * Pierre Cartier...
- Claude ChevalleyClaude ChevalleyClaude Chevalley was a French mathematician who made important contributions to number theory, algebraic geometry, class field theory, finite group theory, and the theory of algebraic groups...
(1926), cofounder of Bourbaki - Gustave ChoquetGustave ChoquetGustave Choquet was a French mathematician.Choquet was born in Solesmes, Nord. His contributions include work in functional analysis, potential theory, topology and measure theory...
- Jean-Louis Colliot-ThélèneJean-Louis Colliot-ThélèneJean-Louis Colliot-Thélène is a French mathematician, born on 2 December 1947. He is a Directeur de Recherches at CNRS at the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay.He studies mainly number theory and algebraic geometry with an arithmetic flavor.-Awards:...
- Pierre ColmezPierre ColmezPierre Colmez is a French mathematician, notable for his work on p-adic analysis.Colmez studied at Ecole Normale Superieure and obtained his doctorate from Grenoble University. He won the 2005 Fermat Prize for his contributions to the study of L-functions and p-adic Galois representations.Colmez...
- Antoine Augustin CournotAntoine Augustin CournotAntoine Augustin Cournot was a French philosopher and mathematician.Antoine Augustin Cournot was born at Gray, Haute-Saone. In 1821 he entered one of the most prestigious Grande École, the École Normale Supérieure, and in 1829 he had earned a doctoral degree in mathematics, with mechanics as his...
- Jean Gaston DarbouxJean Gaston DarbouxJean-Gaston Darboux was a French mathematician.-Life:Darboux made several important contributions to geometry and mathematical analysis . He was a biographer of Henri Poincaré and he edited the Selected Works of Joseph Fourier.Darboux received his Ph.D...
- Jean DelsarteJean DelsarteJean Frédéric Auguste Delsarte was a French mathematician known for his work in mathematical analysis, in particular, for introducing mean-periodic functions and generalised shift operators. He was one of the founders of the Bourbaki group.-External links:...
, cofounder of Bourbaki - Arnaud DenjoyArnaud DenjoyArnaud Denjoy was a French mathematician.Denjoy was born in Auch, Gers. His contributions include work in harmonic analysis and differential equations. His integral was the first to be able to integrate all derivatives...
- Jean DieudonnéJean DieudonnéJean Alexandre Eugène Dieudonné was a French mathematician, notable for research in abstract algebra and functional analysis, for close involvement with the Nicolas Bourbaki pseudonymous group and the Éléments de géométrie algébrique project of Alexander Grothendieck, and as a historian of...
(1924), cofounder of Bourbaki - Adrien DouadyAdrien DouadyAdrien Douady was a French mathematician.He was a student of Henri Cartan at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, and initially worked in homological algebra. His thesis concerned deformations of complex analytic spaces...
(1954) - Paul DubreilPaul DubreilPaul Dubreil was a French mathematician.He was born in Le Mans, Maine, France and died in Soisy-sur-École, France. Dubreil was married to Marie-Louise Jacotin.-External links:...
- Charles EhresmannCharles EhresmannCharles Ehresmann was a French mathematician who worked on differential topology and category theory. He is known for work on the topology of Lie groups, the jet concept , and his seminar on category theory.He attended the École Normale Supérieure in Paris before performing one year of military...
(1927), cofounder of Bourbaki - Pierre FatouPierre FatouPierre Joseph Louis Fatou was a French mathematician working in the field of complex analytic dynamics. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1898 to study mathematics and graduated in 1901 when he was appointed an astronomy post in the Paris Observatory...
(1898) - Maurice René FréchetMaurice René FréchetMaurice Fréchet was a French mathematician. He made major contributions to the topology of point sets and introduced the entire concept of metric spaces. He also made several important contributions to the field of statistics and probability, as well as calculus...
- Évariste GaloisÉvariste GaloisÉvariste Galois was a French mathematician born in Bourg-la-Reine. While still in his teens, he was able to determine a necessary and sufficient condition for a polynomial to be solvable by radicals, thereby solving a long-standing problem...
(1829), originated Galois theoryGalois theoryIn mathematics, more specifically in abstract algebra, Galois theory, named after Évariste Galois, provides a connection between field theory and group theory... - Roger GodementRoger GodementRoger Godement is a French mathematician, known for his work in functional analysis, and also his expository books.He started as a student at the École normale supérieure in 1940, where he became a student of Henri Cartan...
(1940) - Édouard GoursatEdouard GoursatÉdouard Jean-Baptiste Goursat was a French mathematician, now remembered principally as an expositor for his Cours d'analyse mathématique, which appeared in the first decade of the twentieth century. It set a standard for the high-level teaching of mathematical analysis, especially complex analysis...
- Jacques HadamardJacques HadamardJacques Salomon Hadamard FRS was a French mathematician who made major contributions in number theory, complex function theory, differential geometry and partial differential equations.-Biography:...
(1884) - Jacques HerbrandJacques HerbrandJacques Herbrand was a French mathematician who was born in Paris, France and died in La Bérarde, Isère, France. Although he died at only 23 years of age, he was already considered one of "the greatest mathematicians of the younger generation" by his professors Helmut Hasse, and Richard Courant.He...
(1925) - Luc IllusieLuc IllusieLuc Illusie is a French mathematician. He is a former student of École Normale Supérieure, and got his PhD under the supervision of Alexander Grothendieck. He is professor emeritus at the Paris-Sud 11 University. Illusie made notable contributions to algebraic geometry.-External links:*...
- Marie-Louise Jacotin
- Hervé JacquetHervé JacquetHervé Jacquet is a French American mathematician born in France in 1939, working in automorphic forms. He is considered one of the founders of the theory of automorphic representations and their associated L-functions, and his results play a central role in modern number theory.-Career:Jacquet...
- Gaston JuliaGaston JuliaGaston Maurice Julia was a French mathematician who devised the formula for the Julia set. His works were popularized by French mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot; the Julia and Mandelbrot fractals are closely related....
- Vincent LafforgueVincent LafforgueVincent Lafforgue is a French mathematician. He is a "Directeur de Recherches" at the Université d'Orléans since September 1, 2010. Lafforgue was awarded the 2000 EMS Prize for his contribution to the K-theory of operator algebras: the proof of the Baum–Connes conjecture for discrete co-compact...
- Gérard LaumonGérard LaumonGérard Laumon is a French mathematician. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure and Paris-Sud 11 University, Orsay.In 2004 Laumon and Ngô Bảo Châu received the Clay Research Award for the proof of the Langlands and Shelstad's Fundamental Lemma for unitary groups, a key component in the...
- Henri LebesgueHenri LebesgueHenri Léon Lebesgue was a French mathematician most famous for his theory of integration, which was a generalization of the seventeenth century concept of integration—summing the area between an axis and the curve of a function defined for that axis...
(1894) - Jean-François Le GallJean-François Le GallJean-François Le Gall is a French mathematician working in areas of probability theory such as Brownian motion, Lévy processes, superprocesses and their connections with partial differential equations, the Brownian snake, random trees, branching processes, stochastic coalescence and random planar...
- Jean LerayJean LerayJean Leray was a French mathematician, who worked on both partial differential equations and algebraic topology....
(1926) - Jacques-Louis LionsJacques-Louis LionsJacques-Louis Lions ForMemRS was a French mathematician who made contributions to the theory of partial differential equations and to stochastic control, among other areas. He received the SIAM's John Von Neumann prize in 1986. Lions is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher.-Biography:After...
(1950) - Édouard LucasEdouard LucasFrançois Édouard Anatole Lucas was a French mathematician. Lucas is known for his study of the Fibonacci sequence. The related Lucas sequences and Lucas numbers are named after him.-Biography:...
- Szolem Mandelbrojt, cofounder of Bourbaki
- Loïc MerelLoïc MerelLoïc Merel is a French mathematician. His research interests include modular forms and number theory.Born in Carhaix-Plouguer, Brittany, Merel became a student at the École Normale Supérieure. He finished his doctorate at Pierre and Marie Curie University under supervision of Joseph Oesterlé in 1993...
- Yves MeyerYves MeyerYves F. Meyer is a French mathematician and scientist and a foremost expert on wavelets.- Biography :Meyer was a professor at the Paris Dauphine University, at École Polytechnique and currently holds a position as Professor Emeritus at the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan.- Awards and...
- André NéronAndré NéronAndré Néron was a French mathematician at the Université de Poitiers who worked on elliptic curves and Abelian varieties...
(1943) - Joseph OesterléJoseph OesterléJoseph Oesterlé is a French mathematician who, along with David Masser, formulated the abc conjecture in 1985. It is perhaps the most important unsolved problem in diophantine analysis.-External links:*...
- Paul PainlevéPaul PainlevéPaul Painlevé was a French mathematician and politician. He served twice as Prime Minister of the Third Republic: 12 September – 13 November 1917 and 17 April – 22 November 1925.-Early life:Painlevé was born in Paris....
(1883) - Mihailo PetrovićMihailo PetrovicMihailo Petrović Alas , was an influential Serbian mathematician and inventor. He was also a distinguished professor at Belgrade University, an academic of the Serbian Royal Academy, and a fisherman. He was a student of Henri Poincaré, Charles Hermite and Charles Émile Picard...
(1890) - René de PosselRené de PosselLucien Alexandre Charles René de Possel was a French mathematician, one of the founders of the Bourbaki group, and later a pioneer computer scientist, working in particular on optical character recognition....
, cofounder of Bourbaki - Charles Émile PicardCharles Émile PicardCharles Émile Picard FRS was a French mathematician. He was elected the fifteenth member to occupy seat 1 of the Académie Française in 1924.- Biography :...
- Michel RaynaudMichel RaynaudMichel Raynaud is a French mathematician working in algebraic geometry. Since 1967 he has been a professor at Paris-Sud 11 University.In 1983 he published a proof of the Manin-Mumford conjecture....
- Sylvia SerfatySylvia SerfatySylvia Serfaty is a French mathematician. She won the 2004 EMS Prize for her contributions to the Ginzburg–Landau theory.Serfaty earned her doctorate from Paris-Sud 11 University in 1999, under supervision of Fabrice Bethuel. She then held a teaching position at the Ecole Normale Superieure of...
- Gheorghe Tzitzeica
- Paul Vidal de la BlachePaul Vidal de la BlachePaul Vidal de la Blache was a French geographer. He is considered to be the founder of the modern French geography and also the founder of the French School of Geopolitics...
(1863), considered as the founder of French modern geography - Claire VoisinClaire VoisinClaire Voisin is a French professor of mathematics and director of research at the Institut de mathématiques de Jussieu at the University of Paris VI: Pierre et Marie Curie...
- Jean-Loup WaldspurgerJean-Loup WaldspurgerJean-Loup Waldspurger is a French mathematician working on the Langlands program and related areas.Waldspurger attained his doctorate at École normale supérieure in 1980, under supervision of Marie-France Vignéras. He was awarded the 2009 Clay Research Award for his results in p-adic harmonic...
(1980) - Jean-Pierre WintenbergerJean-Pierre WintenbergerJean-Pierre Wintenberger is a French mathematician, and currently a professor of mathematics at the University of Strasbourg. He was corecipient of the 2011 Cole Prize in number theory, along with Chandrashekhar Khare, for his proof of Serre's modularity conjecture.Wintenberger earned his Ph.D. at...
- André WeilAndré WeilAndré Weil was an influential mathematician of the 20th century, renowned for the breadth and quality of his research output, its influence on future work, and the elegance of his exposition. He is especially known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry...
(1922), cofounder of Bourbaki
Philosophy
- Louis AlthusserLouis AlthusserLouis Pierre Althusser was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy....
(1939), Marxist philosopher - Raymond AronRaymond AronRaymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist and political scientist.He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people -- in contrast, Aron argued that in...
(1924), political philosopher, founder of French conservative thought post-1960. - Étienne BalibarÉtienne BalibarÉtienne Balibar is a French Marxist philosopher. After the death of his teacher Louis Althusser, Balibar quickly became the leading exponent of French Marxist philosophy.- Life and work :...
(1960), philosopher and linguist - Georges CanguilhemGeorges CanguilhemGeorges Canguilhem was a French philosopher and physician who specialized in epistemology and the philosophy of science .-Life and work:...
(1924), philosopher of science - Emile Auguste Chartier "Alain" (1889), philosopher
- André Comte-SponvilleAndré Comte-SponvilleAndré Comte-Sponville is a French philosopher born in Paris, France. He studied in the École Normale Supérieure, and is aggregated in philosophy...
(1972), philosopher and essayist - Jean CavaillèsJean CavaillesJean Cavaillès , was a French philosopher and mathematician, specialized in philosophy of science. He took part in the French Resistance within the Libération movement and was shot by the Gestapo on February 17, 1944....
(1923), philosopher and Résistant, martyred by the Germans - Jacques DerridaJacques DerridaJacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
(1952), founder of deconstructionDeconstructionDeconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
. - Michel FoucaultMichel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
(1946), Historian of Systems of Thought, member of Collège de FranceCollège de FranceThe Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles... - Maurice Merleau-PontyMaurice Merleau-PontyMaurice Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir...
(1926), phenomenologist - Jean HyppoliteJean HyppoliteJean Hyppolite was a French philosopher known for championing the work of Hegel, and other German philosophers, and educating some of France's most prominent post-war thinkers....
, founder of Hegelian studies in France - Jacques RancièreJacques RancièreJacques Rancière is a French philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris Jacques Rancière (born Algiers, 1940) is a French philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee...
(1960), philosopher - Philippe-Joseph Salazar (1975), rhetorician, member of College international de philosophieCollège international de philosophieThe Collège international de philosophie , located in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French government department of research and chartered under the French 1901 Law on associations...
- Hippolyte TaineHippolyte TaineHippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate...
(1893) - Simone WeilSimone WeilSimone Weil , was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist.-Biography:Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. She grew up in comfortable circumstances, and her father was a doctor. Her only sibling was...
(1928), philosopher and mystic
Sociology
- Jean-Michel BerthelotJean-Michel BerthelotJean-Michel Berthelot was a French sociologist, philosopher, epistemologist and social theorist, specialist in philosophy of social sciences, history of sociology, sociology of education, sociology of knowledge, sociology of science and sociology of body.- Epistemology and history of sociology...
(1966) - Pierre BourdieuPierre BourdieuPierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher.Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location,...
(1951) - Raymond BoudonRaymond BoudonRaymond Boudon is a French sociologist.He is a Professor in the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and is a member of many important institutions: Académie des Sciences morales et politiques, Academia Europaea, British Academy, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, International Academy of Human...
(1951) - Émile DurkheimÉmile DurkheimDavid Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
(1879), considered the founder of French sociology
Literature
- Paul BénichouPaul BénichouPaul Bénichou, was a French writer, intellectual, critic, and literary historian.Bénichou first achieved prominence in 1948 with Morales du grand siècle, his work on the social context of the French seventeenth-century classics...
(1927) - Robert BrasillachRobert BrasillachRobert Brasillach was a French author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot...
, novelist, critic and pro-nazi collaborationist - Aimé CésaireAimé CésaireAimé Fernand David Césaire was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature".-Student, educator, and poet:...
(1935), poet and politician - Assia DjebarAssia DjebarAssia Djebar is the pen-name of Fatima-Zohra Imalayen , an Algerian novelist, translator and filmmaker. Most of her works deal with obstacles faced by women, and she is noted for her feminist stance. Djebar is considered to be one of North Africa's pre-eminent and most influential writers...
(1955), Algerian novelist and film-maker - Jean GiraudouxJean GiraudouxHippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work is noted for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy...
(1903), playwright - Julien GracqJulien GracqJulien Gracq , born Louis Poirier in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, in the French département of Maine-et-Loire, was a French writer. He wrote novels, critiques, a play, and poetry. His literary works were noted for their Surrealism.Gracq first studied in Paris at the Lycée Henri IV, where he earned his...
(1930), novelist and literary critic - Sabiha Al KhemirSabiha Al KhemirSabiha Al Khemir is a Tunisian writer, illustrator, and expert in Islamic art whose work is concerned with cultural bridging and cultural dialogues. She was the founding director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. She was born in Tunisia and grew up in Korba, Tunisia, where she...
(1982), writer, illustrator and expert in Islamic art - Paul NizanPaul NizanPaul Nizan was a French philosopher and writer.-Biography:He was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire and studied in Paris where he befriended fellow student Jean-Paul Sartre at the Lycée Henri IV...
(1924) - Charles PéguyCharles PéguyCharles Péguy was a noted French poet, essayist, and editor. His two main philosophies were socialism and nationalism, but by 1908 at the latest, after years of uneasy agnosticism, he had become a devout but non-practicing Roman Catholic.From that time, Catholicism strongly influenced his...
(1894), poet - Jules RomainsJules RomainsJules Romains, born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule , was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement...
(1906), novelist - Éric-Emmanuel SchmittÉric-Emmanuel SchmittEric-Emmanuel Schmitt is a French dramatist, novelist and fiction writer. His plays have been staged in over fifty countries all over the world.- Life :...
(1980)
History
- Marc BlochMarc BlochMarc Léopold Benjamin Bloch was a French historian who cofounded the highly influential Annales School of French social history. Bloch was a quintessential modernist. An assimilated Alsatian Jew from an academic family in Paris, he was deeply affected in his youth by the Dreyfus Affair...
(1904), cofounder of the Annales SchoolAnnales SchoolThe Annales School is a group of historians associated with a style of historiography developed by French historians in the 20th century. It is named after its scholarly journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, which remains the main source of scholarship, along with many books and... - Georges DumézilGeorges DumézilGeorges Dumézil was a French comparative philologist best known for his analysis of sovereignty and power in Proto-Indo-European religion and society...
(1916), specialist of Proto-Indo-European society and creator of the trifunctional hypothesisTrifunctional hypothesisThe trifunctional hypothesis of prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society postulates a tripartite ideology reflected in the existence of three classes or castes—priests, warriors, and commoners —corresponding to the three functions of the sacral, the martial and the economic, respectively... - Lucien FebvreLucien FebvreLucien Febvre was a French historian best known for the role he played in establishing the Annales School of history. He has designed the Encyclopédie française together with Anatole de Monzie.-Biography:...
(1899), cofounder of the Annales SchoolAnnales SchoolThe Annales School is a group of historians associated with a style of historiography developed by French historians in the 20th century. It is named after its scholarly journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, which remains the main source of scholarship, along with many books and... - Marcel GranetMarcel GranetMarcel Granet was a French sociologist, ethnologist and sinologist. As a follower of Émile Durkheim and Édouard Chavannes, Granet was one of the first to bring sociological methods to the study of China...
(1904), sinologist - Henri HauserHenri HauserHenri Hauser [ozer] , Algerian-born French economist, historian, geographer.He was a professor of ancient and medieval history at the University of Clermont-Ferrand , and modern history and geography at Dijon University , history at Sorbonne University , economic history at the University of Paris...
(1885), economic historian - Jacques Le GoffJacques Le GoffJacques Le Goff is a prolific French historian specializing in the Middle Ages, particularly the 12th and 13th centuries....
(1945), medievalist - Emmanuel Le Roy LadurieEmmanuel Le Roy LadurieEmmanuel Le Roy Ladurie is a French historian whose work is mainly focused upon Languedoc in the ancien regime, particularly the history of the peasantry.-Early life and career:...
(1949), historian - Paul MantouxPaul MantouxPaul Mantoux was a historian and has written about the industrial revolution in Great Britain.He was a Co-Founder of the Graduate Institute of International Studies and interpreter for Georges Clemenceau at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.-Works:* La Révolution industrielle au XVIIIe siècle...
(1894), economic historian - Neil MacGregorNeil MacGregorRobert Neil MacGregor, OM, FSA is an art historian and museum director. He was the Editor of the Burlington Magazine from 1981 to 1987, the Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 to 2002, and was appointed Director of the British Museum in 2002...
, art historian, Director of the British MuseumBritish MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its... - Jacques SoustelleJacques SoustelleJacques Soustelle was an important and early figure of the Free French Forces and an anthropologist specializing in pre-Columbian civilizations. He became vice-director of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris in 1938. He was elected to the Académie française in 1983.- Biography :Jacques Soustelle was...
(1929), ethnologist
Economics
- Yves BalaskoYves BalaskoYves Balasko was born in Paris on August 9, 1945 from a Hungarian father and a French mother. After studying mathematics at Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, his interests switched to economic theory. He then went for six years at Electricite de France where he was involved in the application of the...
(1964) - Thomas PikettyThomas PikettyThomas Piketty is a French economist who specializes in the study of economic inequality.-Youth and education:Piketty was born on May 7, 1971, in Clichy, Paris, to parents who had taken part in the May 1968 riots...
(1989) - Emmanuel SaezEmmanuel SaezEmmanuel Saez is a French economist. Saez is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley...
(1992) - Xavier GabaixXavier GabaixXavier Gabaix is a French economist, currently a Professor of Finance at the New York University Stern School of Business. He has been listed among the top 8 young economists in the world by The Economist....
(1991) - Esther DufloEsther DufloEsther Duflo is a French economist, currently the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is also co-founder and the Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab...
(1992)
Government and public policy
- Léon BlumLéon BlumAndré Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...
(1890) (expelled during his third year), First Socialist Prime Minister of France in 1936 - Pierre BrossolettePierre BrossolettePierre Brossolette was a French journalist, left-wing politician, a top leader and major hero of French Resistance.-Education and journalism:...
(1922) (politician and resistant) - Laurent FabiusLaurent FabiusLaurent Fabius is a French Socialist politician. He served as Prime Minister from 17 July 1984 to 20 March 1986. He was 37 years old when he was appointed and is, so far, the youngest Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic.-Early life:...
(1966), Prime minister of France from 1984 to 1986 - Édouard HerriotÉdouard HerriotÉdouard Marie Herriot was a French Radical politician of the Third Republic who served three times as Prime Minister and for many years as President of the Chamber of Deputies....
(1891), Prime minister of France in 1924-1925, 1926 and 1932 - Jean JaurèsJean JaurèsJean Léon Jaurès was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. Both parties merged in 1905 in...
(1878) Socialist leader - Alain JuppéAlain JuppéAlain Marie Juppé is a French politician currently serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He also served as Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997 under President Jacques Chirac and the Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs from 2010 to 2011...
(1964), Prime minister of France from 1995 to 1997 - Paul PainlevéPaul PainlevéPaul Painlevé was a French mathematician and politician. He served twice as Prime Minister of the Third Republic: 12 September – 13 November 1917 and 17 April – 22 November 1925.-Early life:Painlevé was born in Paris....
(1883), mathematician and Prime minister of France in 1917 and 1925 - Georges PompidouGeorges PompidouGeorges Jean Raymond Pompidou was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.-Biography:...
(1931), Prime minister of France from 1962 to 1968 and President of France from 1969 to 1974 - Michel SapinMichel SapinMichel Sapin is a member of the National Assembly of France. He represents the Indre department, and is a member of the Socialiste, radical, citoyen et divers gauche.-Biography:...
, Deputy Minister of Justice from May 1991 to April 1992, Finance Minister from April 1992 to March 1993, and Minister of Civil Servants and State Reforms from March 2000 to May 2002. - Laurent WauquiezLaurent WauquiezLaurent Wauquiez is a French politician and the current Secretary of State for European Affairs under the Foreign and European Affairs Minister, Alain Juppé....
(1994)
Faculty
- Louis AlthusserLouis AlthusserLouis Pierre Althusser was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy....
- Alain BadiouAlain BadiouAlain Badiou is a French philosopher, professor at European Graduate School, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure . Along with Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Žižek, Badiou is a prominent figure in an anti-postmodern strand of continental philosophy...
- Samuel BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
(1969 Nobel Prize in Literature) - Pierre BonnetPierre Ossian BonnetPierre Ossian Bonnet was a French mathematician. He made some important contributions to the differential geometry of surfaces, including the Gauss-Bonnet theorem.-Early years:...
- Paul CelanPaul CelanPaul Celan was a poet and translator...
- Victor CousinVictor CousinVictor Cousin was a French philosopher. He was a proponent of Scottish Common Sense Realism and had an important influence on French educational policy.-Early life:...
- John Coates
- Numa Denis Fustel de CoulangesNuma Denis Fustel de CoulangesNuma Denis Fustel de Coulanges was a French historian.Born in Paris, of Breton descent, after studying at the École Normale Supérieure he was sent to the French School at Athens in 1853, he directed some excavations in Chios, and wrote an historical account of the island.After his return he filled...
- Jacques DerridaJacques DerridaJacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
- Alfred Des CloizeauxAlfred Des CloizeauxAlfred Louis Olivier Legrand Des Cloizeaux was a French mineralogist.Des Cloizeaux was born at Beauvais, in the department of Oise. He studied with Jean-Baptiste Biot at the Collège de France. He became professor of mineralogy at the École Normale Supérieure and afterwards at the Muséum National...
- Laurent FreidelLaurent FreidelLaurent Freidel is a physicist, working at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He is working in loop quantum gravity and spin foam models of quantum gravity...
- Jacques LacanJacques LacanJacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
- Ernest LavisseErnest LavisseErnest Lavisse was a French historian.- Biography :He was born at Le Nouvion-en-Thiérache, Aisne.In 1865 he obtained a fellowship in history, and in 1875 became a doctor of letters; he was appointed maître de conférence at the École Normale Supérieure, succeeding Fustel de Coulanges, and then...
- Alfred KastlerAlfred KastlerAlfred Kastler was a French physicist, and Nobel Prize laureate.Kastler was born in Guebwiller and later attended the Lycée Bartholdi in Colmar, Alsace, and École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1921...
(1966 Nobel Prize in Physics) - Thomas MacGreevyThomas MacGreevyThomas MacGreevy was a pivotal figure in the history of Irish literary modernism. A poet, he was also director of the National Gallery of Ireland from 1950 to 1963 and served on the first Irish Arts Council .-Early life:MacGreevy was born in County Kerry, the son of a policeman and a primary...
- Jacqueline de RomillyJacqueline de RomillyJacqueline Worms de Romilly, née David was a French philologist, classical scholar and fiction writer. Because she was of Jewish ancestry, the Vichy government suspended her from her teaching duties during the Occupation of France. she was the first woman nominated to the Collège de France, and in...
- Jean-Pierre SerreJean-Pierre SerreJean-Pierre Serre is a French mathematician. He has made contributions in the fields of algebraic geometry, number theory, and topology.-Early years:...
(1954 Fields Medal)