Olivier Gascuel wins the 2017 Inria–French Academy of Sciences Grand Prize

The Inria Awards were set up in 2011 to promote the contributions and achievements of those whose work stretches the boundaries of computer science and mathematics, opening up new frontiers in the development of digital technologies.

Since 2013, the French Academy of Sciences and Inria have joined forces to reward the efforts of scientists in three categories, including the Grand Prize, which goes to a scientist, a group of scientists or a research team that has made an outstanding contribution to the field of computer science and mathematics. The winners must carry out their research at an institution in France, although they do not have to be French or affiliated with a French institution.

This year's winner is Olivier Gascuel, a bioinformatics pioneer and Director of the Institut Pasteur's Center for Bioinformatics, Biostatistics and Integrative Biology (C3BI, USR 3756 IP – CNRS). The award emphasizes the importance of his evolutionary bioinformatics research and his commitment to exploring the interdisciplinarity between biology, mathematics and computer science.

The official prize-giving ceremony for the 2017 Academy of Sciences Awards was held at the Institut de France on November 21.