“The impact of science continues to grow in our societies”

In December 2023 Emmanuel Macron announced the creation of a ‘Presidential Science Council’ to be made up of 14 high-level scientists representing all disciplines. The Elysée Palace announced that the new body illustrated Macron’s wish to place science at the heart of public decision making.

Anne-Marie Kermarrec, a professor at EPFL since 2020, who heads the Scalable Computing Systems Laboratory in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences recently joined 12 inaugural appointees to the Council.

“It’s a real honor to be part of the French Presidential Science Council and, needless to say, I am in excellent company. Science holds considerable importance in our society, and its impact continues to grow with areas like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and digital sovereignty, which particularly concern me as a representative of computer science in this body,” said Kermarrec.

Before joining EPFL the professor was CEO of the start-up Mediego, founded in 2015, providing content personalization services for online publishers. Previously, she was a Research Director at Inria, the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology.

With research interests focused on large-scale distributed systems, epidemic algorithms, peer to peer networks and system support for machine learning, Kermarrec was elected to the European Academy in 2013 and named ACM Fellow in 2016 and she is looking forward to contributing to science dialogue at the highest level in France and highlighting major and emerging issues in terms of research.

“Emmanuel Macron’s determination to place science at the heart of political strategy and reflections on the future of the country is excellent news. In addition to raising the President's awareness of pressing scientific issues, this committee also represents a unique opportunity to discuss the future of the scientific research in France,” Kermarrec concluded.