Life in the lab

The Scientific Game Jam took place last November in Tokyo. This event brings together PhD students from all nationalities and students in programming, graphic design, sound design, etc., to create a video game inspired by their research topic.
This year, fifty participants, divided into nine interdisciplinary teams, took on the challenge of transforming, in a single weekend, the complexity of a young scientist’s research into a captivating video game. Once language and disciplinary (…)

After winning the first jury prize, Charline Coudun, a PhD student at UGA within the Doctoral School of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences and at the Institute of Earth Sciences (ISTerre-CNRS/IRD/UGA/UGE/USMB), has been selected as one of the 16 national finalists of the “My Thesis in 180 Seconds” competition !
At the national grand finale on, June 17, 2025 in Paris, she will present her thesis topic in just three minutes : “The continental margins of the Demerara Plateau (…)

A Junior Research Director (Chaire de Professeur Junior – CPJ) position in Urban Seismology is currently open at ISTerre (Grenoble, France).

The application deadline is approaching fast — July 5.

Junior Research Director Position (CPJ) in Urban Seismology at ISTerre – Université Gustave Eiffel
The selected candidate will initially be hired for a three-year term as a Junior Research Director by Université Gustave Eiffel (UGE) and hosted at the ISTerre laboratory. By the end of this period, the candidate is expected to have : Built a strong international scientific reputation, Demonstrated research autonomy, Obtained (or be in the process of obtaining) the Habilitation à Diriger des (…)

On June 18 and 19, the latest edition of the ISTerre PhD Students’ Conference took place in the inspiring setting of Sappey-en-Chartreuse. Organized by the PhD students themselves, this event highlighted the diversity of research conducted within the laboratory.
The program included oral presentations, poster sessions, scientific discussions, and social moments. The goal of these two days was not only to showcase the work of young researchers but also to strengthen exchanges between teams (…)

From September 15 to 24, a team of 14 engineers, PhD students, and researchers from ISTerre, LMV, GET, and IRAP deployed an ultra-dense seismic network of 624 sensors across the recent volcanoes of the Massif Central, covering an area of 80x100 km. This is the largest node network ever installed by a university team in France, both in terms of number of sensors and area covered.
The deployment complements the 100 broadband seismometers temporarily installed as part of the Sismob network (…)

For several decades, satellite remote sensing has been a key tool for studying, monitoring, and anticipating natural hazards, as well as assessing their impacts on local populations. At ISTerre, our researchers use it to monitor tectonic faults, landslides, volcanoes, and rock glaciers, applying methods adapted to different spatial and temporal scales (optical, radar, and lidar).
For the past five years, we have been training our colleagues in Latin America (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia) in the (…)

Michel Campillo, Professor Emeritus of Geophysics at the University of Grenoble Alpes and researcher at ISTerre, has been appointed a member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC). This independent body defines the scientific strategy of the ERC, the main European organization funding frontier research.
A professor at the University of Grenoble Alpes since 1989, Michel Campillo is recognized for his work on the propagation of seismic waves and passive imaging of (…)

Congratulations to Laurent Charlet, molecular geochemist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Grenoble-Alpes, for this honorary recognition. His pioneering research in molecular-scale chemical reactivity and multidisciplinary environmental studies has had a global impact.
This award also highlights his long-standing collaboration with Swansea University, further strengthening the scientific partnership between the two institutions.

Read the full article here

As part of the MADALPS project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), a team of 13 scientists deployed a dense temporary seismic sensor network in October 2025 between France and Italy, in the heart of the Southern Alps. This network, consisting of 70 sensors, is the result of a collaboration between ISTerre (44 sensors), Géoazur (16 sensors), and the French Nuclear Safety and Radioprotection Authority (ASNR, 10 sensors). Its goal is to better understand the region’s seismic (…)

Naomi Nitschke has been awarded the 2025 BRGM PhD Thesis Prize, which recognizes outstanding doctoral research in the geosciences.
The prize was awarded for her PhD thesis entitled “Rehabilitation of gold mines in French Guiana : stabilization and fate of mercury and metalloids”, carried out as a CIFRE PhD in collaboration with GAIA SAS, and co-supervised by ISTerre (Grenoble), IPREM (Pau), and BRGM (Orléans).
Her work aims to improve the understanding of mercury behavior at gold (…)