Three researchers from the Institut Polytechnique de Paris receive the 2026 CNRS Bronze Medal

Alejandro Alvarez Laguna is a CNRS research fellow at the Laboratory of Plasma Physics (LPP*). As a specialist in non-equilibrium plasmas, he develops models to better understand the behavior of these complex media. To this end, he studies plasmas subjected to a magnetic field, where charged and neutral particles coexist. Alejandro Alvarez Laguna uses an approach combining physics and applied mathematics to accurately model heat fluxes, viscosity, and instabilities in these media. His work opens new avenues for understanding and predicting plasma behavior under various conditions, with applications in the field of space propulsion. Satellites use a rare and expensive gas—xenon—which they ionize to create a plasma, then accelerate and eject at high speed to generate thrust. The tools developed by Alejandro Alvarez Laguna thus contribute to designing more efficient and economical thrusters, while optimizing existing ones.

More information:
>> Alejandro Alvarez Laguna on Google Scholar
>> Four researchers from the Institut Polytechnique de Paris awarded ERC Starting Grants

Vicky Kalogeiton is a professor at the École Polytechnique’s Computer Science Laboratory (LIX*). As an expert in computer vision and generative artificial intelligence, she develops models capable of analyzing, understanding, and generating images, videos, and other types of data. Vicky Kalogeiton also explores approaches to leveraging data more efficiently and cost-effectively. She has also focused on AI-driven video analysis and, for example, has trained algorithms to recognize complex situations such as humorous elements in movie or TV show scenes. Her work has applications in many fields: in creative fields, where her multimodal generative models are used to generate video or reproduce camera movements; in the medical field, where they can predict the risk of transplant rejection based on visual examinations; and in defense, where these techniques can contribute to the analysis of high-risk situations such as pilots fainting due to high acceleration.

More information:
>> Vicky Kalogeiton on Google Scholar
>> AI: Toward Ever More Efficient Image Generation

Anna Korba is a tenure-track faculty member at the Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST**). As a specialist in machine learning, she focuses particularly on optimization in the space of probability measures. In other words, she develops mathematical methods to help artificial intelligence better understand, explore, and generate complex data, while managing uncertainty. Using new algorithms and specific mathematical tools, Anna Korba seeks to efficiently explore all possibilities of a complex problem and find the most relevant transformations for organizing and comparing datasets. Her methods also enable better data sampling—that is, extracting representative examples—and producing predictions that account for uncertainties. Anna Korba’s work thus opens new avenues in generative artificial intelligence, as well as in computational biology and the creative industries.

More information:
>> Anna Korba on Google Scholar
>> Four researchers from the Institut Polytechnique de Paris awarded ERC Starting Grants