Life in the lab

On 22 September 2026, ISTerre celebrated its 15th anniversary during a day dedicated to the institute’s history, development and future prospects, also marked by the inauguration of the NODES building.
The day brought together many members of ISTerre, along with several guests, including representatives from Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA). The discussions provided an opportunity to look back at the institute’s scientific and technical developments over the past fifteen years, while (…)

Metropolitan areas need innovative tools to ensure continuous monitoring of their infrastructure and strengthen their resilience to climate change, natural hazards, and stresses related to human activities. Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) technology, which leverages existing fiber-optic networks already deployed in urban environments (dark fiber), transforms these fibers into distributed sensors capable of measuring, in real time, the vibrations generated by traffic, infrastructure, and (…)

A new recognition for Nikolai Shapiro and his research on volcanoes. A CNRS Research Director at ISTerre, he has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant 2025 for his DeepMagmaWaves project, which focuses on understanding how magma moves deep beneath volcanoes.
This is the second ERC Advanced Grant awarded to Nikolai Shapiro, supporting ambitious research projects at the frontiers of knowledge.
With DeepMagmaWaves, his team aims to better understand what happens beneath volcanoes, where (…)

The "outside the walls" days of the Alps and Peripheral Basins project of the French Geological Reference Framework (RGF) took place from 22 to 24 June at ISTerre and at several geological sites in the surrounding area.
The event began with a field excursion dedicated to the Quaternary deposits of the Rhône Valley, led by Clément Fraysse and Romain Delunel (Université de Lyon).
The day of 23 June, held at ISTerre, featured a series of scientific presentations given by PhD students (…)

On 22 and 23 June 2026, ISTerre PhD researchers gathered in Sappey-en-Chartreuse for a new edition of the PhD Congress. This annual event, organised by the laboratory’s PhD students, is an important moment in ISTerre’s scientific and community life.
Over two days, participants presented their work through oral talks and poster sessions, offering a rich and varied overview of the research carried out within the laboratory. The exchanges enabled many scientific discussions in a focused yet (…)

Congratulations to Robin Hintzen, former PhD student in ISTerre’s Mineralogy and Geochemistry teams, who has been awarded the 2026 Haüy-Lacroix Prize by the French Society of Mineralogy and Crystallography (SFMC).
Awarded annually for an outstanding PhD thesis in one of the SFMC’s fields of research, the prize was awarded in 2026 to Robin Hintzen, for his PhD work, conducted under the supervision of Laurent Truche and Roland Hellmann.
His thesis, entitled "Abiotic reactivity of minerals (…)

Between June and October 2025, a team from ISTerre conducted a major geophysical campaign in Albania focused on natural hydrogen. For four months, researchers worked in the Bulqizë ophiolite, one of Europe’s most promising sites, to investigate its deep structure and understand the geological processes that generate and transport this little-known gas.
Probing a Complex Natural System The mission aimed to produce a detailed image of Bulqizë’s subsurface using a combination of (…)

The company Géolithe has been awarded the “Géologie et Entreprise” Prize by the Geological Society of France for its remarkable multidisciplinary approach, the implementation of techniques applied/developed across various fields of geology (natural hazards, land planning and territories, water and environment, deposits and resources), and its strong collaboration with national teaching and research institutions in Earth Sciences, with which it publishes. Géolithe is also a partner of the (…)

Université Grenoble Alpes has honored thirteen PhD graduates from the class of 2025 whose doctoral research was judged to be of exceptional quality : seven awards recognizing academic excellence, three promoting interdisciplinary research, two supporting both technological and social innovation, and one encouraging ecological transformation. The prizes will be presented during the “Doctors’ Ceremony” on June 9, 2026.
The candidates had been pre-selected by the thirteen doctoral schools of (…)

Seminar : Gender Inequalities in Higher Education and Research

Raising Awareness on Gender Inequalities in Higher Education and Research
At our ISTerre, we are committed to reflecting on and acting against gender inequalities in higher education and research. To this end, we regularly organize awareness sessions and training. The next seminar, led by Anna-Livia Morand, a trainer specializing in gender issues, invites all staff and doctoral students to explore how biases and stereotypes impact careers and to identify concrete actions to reduce (…)