Welcome
Since April 2025, I am the director of the Institut Henri Poincaré. To reach me in this function, please use my email address in the form firstname.lastname@ihp.fr (without accents), and note that I receive many messages so there is no guarantee of reply.
Since September 2023, I am a professor at Sorbonne University, attached to the Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu-Paris Rive Gauche, where I am the head of the Combinatorics and Optimization team. Before that, I have been a permanent researcher at the Institut de Physique Théorique, CEA Paris-Saclay.
Here are my contact details at IMJ-PRG, information about my teaching, and some scientific events I am or have been involved in. Here is also an academic CV (as of October 2025).
My research interests lie at the interface between combinatorics, mathematical physics, and probability theory. Some keywords : random maps, two-dimensional quantum gravity, integrability, determinantal and pfaffian processes, dimer models, loop gases…
Publications
My publications are available online on my arXiv page. See also the list compiled by Google Scholar. My habilitation thesis, defended in 2019, is available here or on TEL (it is written mostly in English). My doctoral thesis, defended in 2005, is also on TEL (it is written in French).
Talks
You can get an idea of my work by looking at the files from some of my talks. My habilitation defence (in French) provides an overview going from 2005 to 2019. Here are some general talks on my main subject, random maps:
- a talk about the history of the field: Enumeration of planar maps: from the quadratic method to quantum gravity (Tutte Centenary Conference, Cambridge, 2017 — abstract)
- a previous version of this talk (in French, but with pictures): Cartes aléatoires et gravité quantique (Forum de la Théorie au CEA, Saclay, 2013 — résumé)
- a talk more focused on my work (still in French with pictures): Quelques aspects des cartes aléatoires (Journées de Physique Statistique 2014, Paris)
- a general seminar intended for a math-oriented audience, given in several places: Distances in random maps and discrete integrability
Then, talks on more specific subjects:
- Steep tilings and sequences of interlaced partitions, Integrability and Representation Theory seminar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 25 September 2014 (abstract)
- The nested loop approach to the O(n) model on random maps, Quantum Gravity in Paris, Orsay, 22 March 2013 (abstract)
- Planar maps and continued fractions, ESF Conference on Combinatorics and Analysis in Spatial Probability, Eindhoven, 16 December 2010 (abstract, conference webpage)
- Statistics of geodesics in large quadrangulations, Workshop on Combinatorics and Statistical Physics, Vienne, 26 May 2008 (abstract, conference webpage)
- Des cartes planaires eulériennes aux arbres étiquetés : les mobiles, Groupe de travail Arbres et Chemins, Bordeaux, 25 November 2004 (abstract, conference webpage)
PhD students
- François Nunzi (thesis defended in 2016, codirection S. Corteel)
- Linxiao Chen (thesis defended in 2018, codirection N. Curien)
- Harriet Walsh (thesis defended in 2022, codirection G. Chapuy)
- Hugo Manet (thesis started in 2023, codirection G. Chapuy and E. Guitter)
- Thomas Lejeune (thesis started in 2024, codirection B. Eynard)
- Maena Quemener (thesis started in 2025, codirection S. Corteel and S. Tarricone)
Postdocs
- Dan Betea (2015-2016)
- Peter Nejjar (2015-2016)
- Joonas Turunen (2020-2022)
- Sofia Tarricone (2022-2024)
Coauthors
I have the chance to count the following people as coauthors : Marie Albenque, Chikashi Arita, Arvind Ayyer, Rémi Bardenet, Dan Betea, Gaëtan Borot, Cédric Boutillier, Mark Bowick, Ariane Carrance, Guillaume Chapuy, Sylvie Corteel, Pascal Degiovanni, Philippe Di Francesco, Bertrand Duplantier, Alexandre Feller, Éric Fusy, Emmanuel Guitter, Adrien Hardy, Monwhea Jeng, Paul Krapivsky, Svante Linusson, Kirone Mallick, Hugo Manet, Grégory Miermont, Peter Nejjar, François Nunzi, Sanjay Ramassamy, Adam Rançon, Benjamin Roussel, Grégory Schehr, Mirjana Vuletić, Harriet Walsh, Christoph Westbrook.
Current and past grants
ANR CartesEtPlus (2024-2029), IRN PIICQ (2021-2025), ANR Dimers (2019-2025), ANR COMBINÉ (2019-2025), FBF Cylindric partitions (2020-2022), PEPS Carma (2016), ANR GRAAL (2014-2019), Combinatoire à Paris (2013-2017), ANR Cartaplus (2013-2016)