Nathalie Destouches, new senior member of the IUF

Nathalie Destouches is our latest researcher to be appointed as a member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). She was awarded an Innovation Chair as part of the 2024 Senior IUF promotion, for a period of 5 years.

The Institut Universitaire de France is a service of the French Ministry of Higher Education that each year distinguishes a small number of faculty members for their research excellence, as evidenced by their international recognition. It aims at strengthening interdisciplinarity by encouraging excellence in fundamental research, innovation and scientific mediation. During their five-year delegation, members of the IUF are relieved from part of their teaching duties, which allows them to focus on their IUF-funded research project.

Graduated in 1998 with an engineering degree in optics from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Physique de Marseille, followed by a PhD from the Fresnel Institute and the University of Aix-Marseille III in 2001 and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Laboratory of Glasses in Montpellier, Nathalie joined the Hubert Curien Laboratory (then named «LTSI») and the University Jean Monnet in 2002. While her initial research focused on the design, fabrication, and characterization of resonant gratings for filtering applications, she now focuses on laser-induced nanostructuring of plasmonic materials, as part of the Functional Materials & Surfaces team’s «Nanoparticles» group that she has been leading since 2006. Nathalie has also been actively working on developing applications of her fundamental research with industrial partners, activities which have  gained her an «Innovation» position at the IUF. Nathalie also coordinates the UJM master’s degree program in Optics, Image, Vision, Multimedia (OIVM), as well as its EMJMD IPSRS (Intelligent Photonics for Security Reliability Sustainability and Safety) specialization track.

Congratulations Nathalie!

More info on the IUF here