Christelle Roy appointed Director of CNRS Nuclei & Particles
Physics
Antoine Petit, the Chairman and CEO of the CNRS, has appointed Christelle Roy as Director of CNRS Nuclei & Particles, which is to say the CNRS’s National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics, effective 1 February 2024. She succeeds Reynald Pain, who will assume other duties. Alain Mermet, the Director of the CNRS Branch Office in Brussels, will become the head of CNRS Europe and International, effective 1 February 2024.
Christelle Roy, who was born in Lons-le-Saunier, is the holder of a master’s degree in physics, a doctorate in nuclear physics, and an authorisation to supervise research (HDR) completed in 2005. Joining the CNRS in 1997, this specialist in subatomic physics was initially part of the Subatech Laboratory (CNRS/Nantes Université/IMT Atlantique), for which she served as Deputy Director from 2005 to 2009. While there, she conducted a number of experiments in heavy-ion physics using particle colliders in France and abroad.
After working on the STAR experiment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States, Roy conducted research from 2005 to 2021 as part of the Alice experiment with the LHC at CERN: the focus was to probe the properties of matter in strong interaction when exposed to temperatures likely to create a new state, similar to that of the primordial matter of the Universe present right after the Big Bang. From 2005 to 2011, this CNRS Senior Researcher served as the spokesperson for the EMCal international project, named after the tool for probing quark-gluon plasma, conducted as part of the Alice experiment at CERN.
From January 2011 to August 2017, Roy Directed the Hubert Curien Pluridisciplinary Institute in Strasbourg, a laboratory bringing together the CNRS and l’Université de Strasbourg, and including research in subatomic physics, analytical sciences, ecology, physiology, ethology, and interdisciplinary programmes, with a special focus on health and the energy transition.
From 2017 to March 2021 she served as Vice President for Strategy and Development at l’Université de Strasbourg, where she led strategic projects with a long-term perspective.
In November 2020 she joined CNRS management as Project Leader for Europe reporting to the Chief Scientific Officer, before being appointed as the Director of the CNRS’s Europe and International Department in May 2021.
Her research has led to over 300 published scientific articles. In parallel to these activities, Roy was a member of the Scientific Committee of the French Nuclear Safety Authority from April 2015 to June 2021, and has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the Naval Group since September 2022.
