Sylvie Retailleau

Biography

Promotion 1986/2000

After completing a preparatory class at the Lycée Dumont D'Urville in Toulon, she entered the École Normale Supérieure in Cachan (now ENS Paris-Saclay) in the EEA (Electricity, Electrical Engineering and Automation) department in 1986.
In 1988, she obtained an agrégation in physical sciences, with a major in applied physics, from ENS Cachan.
A physicist specialising in components for advanced electronics (microelectronics, nanoelectronics and quantum electronics), she defended her thesis entitled "Étude du transistor bipolaire à double hétérojonction Si/SiGe/Si par simulations Monte-Carlo" (Study of the Si/SiGe/Si double heterojunction bipolar transistor using Monte-Carlo simulations) in 1992 at the Université Paris-Sud under the supervision of René Castagné.

In 1992, she became a lecturer at the University of Paris-Sud, and in 2001 a university professor.
She developed her research at the Institut d'Électronique Fondamentale (UMR CNRS Université Paris-Sud), which on 1 June 2016 merged with the Laboratoire de Photonique et de Nanostructures (LPN) to form the Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies C2N (CNRS/Université Paris-Sud), a world-class laboratory in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

At the same time, she has taken on responsibilities related to her research activities, particularly in the context of industrial cooperation and development: she has taken part in European projects: ICT NANOSIL "Silicon-based nanostructures and nanodevices for long term nanoelectronics applications"; REX SINANO (collaboration with IMEP and L2MP); PI NANOCMOS (ST Microelectronics, Philips, Infineon); IST PULLNANO (6th PCRD, 2006-2008) and ANR projects: "MODERN: Modélisation de Dispositifs Electronique en Régime Nanométrique (Modelling of Electronic Devices in Nanometric Regimes); and as team leader for HF-CNT, a carbon nanotube-based nanodevice for multi-GHz applications (2006-2009 with CEA/LEM, IEMN, LPA).

Dean of the Faculty of Science from September 2011 to May 2016, she was President of Université Paris-Sud from May 2016 to December 2018, and then President of the COMUE Université Paris-Saclay.

From March 2020 to May 2022, she was President of Université Paris-Saclay, of which ENS Paris-Saclay is a co-founder. In this capacity, she was an ex-officio member of the ENS Paris-Saclay Board of Directors, having previously sat on the Board from 2016 to 2019 as a representative of partner institutions and on the Scientific Advisory Board from 2010 to 2016.

On 20 May 2022, she was appointed Minister for Higher Education and Research.