• Vice President, R&D and Innovation, Saint-Gobain
• Member of the French Academy of Sciences
• Member of the Académie des technologies

Didier Roux was born in 1955. After studying chemistry and physics at theÉcole normale supérieure in Saint-Cloud, he joined the CNRS in 1980. Awarded a doctorate in 1984, he was director of research at CNRS between 1990 and 2005. He headed the Paul-Pascal research center in Bordeaux from 1997 to 2001.

A physical chemist specializing in condensed matter, his research has covered many theoretical and experimental aspects of soft matter (liquid crystals, polymers, colloids, surfactants in solution, etc.). In particular, he has studied the effects of thermal fluctuations on two-dimensional liquid objects (membrane phases), contributing to the experimental discovery of ripple interactions, the theoretical description and study of the sponge phase, and the discovery of "onion" structures obtained by the flow of lamellar phases.

Author of over 150 scientific papers and 14 patents, he has won numerous prizes and awards, including the IBM Materials Grand Prix and the Mergier-Bourdeix Grand Prix of the Académie des Sciences. He has also been awarded the CNRS Silver Medal and Medal for Innovation.

Interested in the applications of research, he helped create two start-ups linked to his research work in 1994 and 1998, was deputy scientific director of Rhône-Poulenc and was a member of Rhodia's scientific and technological council between 1997 and 2005. Since June 1, 2005, he has been Director of Research and Development at Saint-Gobain. Director of Innovation for the Saint-Gobain Group since January 2009, he is a member of the Académie des Sciences (Institut de France) and the Académie des Technologies. He is Chairman of the Scientific Councils of ADEME and École des ponts.