Laurent Ponson

Laurent Ponson obtained his master degree in Physics from École Centrale de Paris in 2003. He then obtained his PhD degree in Physics from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris in 2006. In 2007, he worked as a post-doctoral scholar with a Lavoisier fellowship from the French Minister of Foreign Affairs at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Then, he worked as a Marie Curie fellow in the department of Mechanical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He recently obtained a CNRS researcher position in the Mechanics Department of Paris VI University that he joined in January 2011. His main research interest deals with failure properties of heterogeneous solids. He investigates both theoretically and experimentally the role played by the microstructure of solids on their macroscopic failure properties such as their strength or their lifetime. Recently, he investigated the adhesion properties of heterogeneous thin films and developed a new kind of adhesive with improved adhesion properties. He is author of three patents and more than 20 publications in international refereed journals. He had also the opportunity to give a tenth of invited talks in internationally-recognized conferences in Physics, Mathematics and Mechanics.