Hélène Morlon

Research Director, Biological Institute of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, France.

I am a research director at the CNRS, and team leader at the Biological Institute of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. I am an evolutionary ecologist broadly interested in biodiversity research. I studied Mathematics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Cachan. I got a master in Ecology from the University of Paris 6, and completed a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Bordeaux.

I then spent five years in the United States as a postdoctoral researcher. In Jessica Green’s Lab at UC Merced and the University of Oregon, I modelled spatial patterns of biodiversity, and applied my theory to the study of plant and microbial diversity. I rapidly got interested in analyzing biodiversity in a phylogenetic context.

I joined Joshua Plotkin’s Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, and started developing phylogenetic approaches to diversification. Moving to UC Berkeley in Matthew Potts Lab, I pursued my research at the interface between ecology and evolution.

When I entered the CNRS in 2010 I was based at the Ecole Polytechnique, and I moved to the Ecole Normale Supérieure in 2014 where I led an ERC-funded project. In 2015 I received the CNRS bronze medal, in 2016 I became a TED Fellow, and in 2017 I received the Irene Joliot Curie price for Young Scientific Women.

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