Nicole Vilmer embodies a quest for excellence, rooted in the collective
Nicole Vilmer, a former student at the École Normale Supérieure de Fontenay-aux-Roses and physics agrégée, quickly turned her attention to astrophysics and space technology. After spending a year at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, where she discovered high-energy solar physics, and writing her doctoral thesis in 1985 at the University of Paris VII (now Paris Cité) on solar radio and X-ray emissions, she continued her research as a CNRS researcher in the solar physics group at the Paris Observatory. She is now Director of Research Emeritus at the CNRS.
His research has focused on many aspects of solar activity (eruptions, energetic particles), and over the last ten years he has studied the influence of solar activity on the Earth’s magnetised environment as part of space meteorology, a rapidly developing discipline.
Committed to a collaborative approach, it has established numerous international scientific links, notably with NASA (RHESSI high-energy solar physics satellite), the University of Glasgow, etc., and with European Union projects such as FLARECAST and LOFAR4SW. It has made a major contribution to the preparation of the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission, and in particular to the STIX instrument for X-ray spectro-imaging of solar flares. She is currently exploiting the data from this instrument, in particular in combination with the RPW radio observations on Solar Orbiter and the ground-based observations from the Nançay solar instruments. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with numerous young researchers, supervising them in their theses and post-docs, and helping to train young scientists.
Nicole Vilmer has held a number of positions of responsibility, both in France and abroad : chair of the INSU’s National Solar-Terrestrial Programme (2004-2009), and chair of commissions and divisions within SCOSTEP, COSPAR and the IAU. She has also played an active role in various national and international think-tanks on space weather.
A campaigner for the role of women in science, she is involved in the Femmes & Sciences association and mentors female doctoral students. She regularly gives talks in schools to share her passion for research and encourage vocations. She also contributes to the dissemination of science to the general public through her lectures and her participation in popularisation publications.
Portrait of Nicole Vilmer by
