Proud of our students

The Faculty of Science's Master Chemistry team shines at the French Chemists' Tournament

What is the French Chemists' Tournament?
This is a competition between 7 establishments (ENS, ENS Lyon, ENS Paris Saclay, X École polytechnique, Chimie ParisTech and ESPCI and the University of Montpellier).
7 enthusiastic and motivated teams battled it out on March 25 and 26, 2022 at Chimie ParisTech during scientific oratory jousts. During these marathons of scientific debate, teams take on different roles, for which the students will in turn have to present results, criticize and argue on the work of another team, or moderate a scientific debate.

For its first participation, our team was awarded the bronze medal ahead of the prestigious grandes écoles ENS Paris Saclay, X Ecole Polytechnique, ENS Lyon and Chimie ParisTech.
One of our students, Bruna Rafaela Pereira-Resende, was also awarded the eloquence prize for best contradicter.
This result is the consequence of the tremendous work carried out by our team of students and supervisors, demonstrating the excellence of our chemistry courses within the Faculty of Science.

Prix Codige

IESF AWARD CEREMONY - OM CODIGE 2020

Vonday, october16, 2020at 6 p.m. - Amphi 36.01

Every year, the IESF OM, in association with Codige, organizes a prize to reward the best internship reports.
This year, 1st prize will be awarded to Clara Erard of the Master's degree in Ecology and Biodiversity Management.

Every year, students at the Faculty of Science complete nearly 1,000MASTER internshipsin France and abroad, lasting a minimum of 6 months.

The prize includes a check for €1,500, which will be presented at the award ceremony.

Successful candidates are selectedon the basis of their reports on their end-of-study internships, lasting a minimum of 6 months and carried out within a company.
These internships can be in a variety of fields, including life sciences, material sciences, biology and health, technology in general, economics and management...

Selection takes place in two stages: the director or president of each establishment concerned selects and presents 2 internship reports for the Master 2 students, then the final selection and ranking of the winners is made by a jury made up of engineers, teacher-researchers, scientists and industrialists.

Evaluation criteria takeinto account the quality of the project, its integration into the company's strategy and the candidate's mastery of it. They also take into account the trainee's involvement in the company, his or her writing skills and effectiveness in terms of communication. The innovative nature of the study and its results, and the quality of the link between the analysis and the proposals for action are also taken into account to highlight the scientific and technical value of the trainee's work.

TAF (Tropical AgroForestry) project

Who are we?

Thibault Martino (21), Justin Rousset (21) and Léa Pouget (22), 3 students in their final year of the Licence Bio-Eco program at Fds. All three of us are aiming for a Master's degree in tropical plant ecology and/or agricultural systems, which will enable us to acquire new skills for our respective professional projects.
=> Thibault intends to base his future on working with local populations to develop sustainable agriculture based on agroforestry and agroecology techniques.
=> Justin is interested in the management and conservation of natural tropical areas, a source of biodiversity essential to understanding ecosystems.
=> Léa would like to get involved in applied research, in the service of the balance between biodiversity and community use of the forest.

Find out all about the project by clicking here!!!

A description of our project

Despite this pandemic period, the world is moving forward and our problems are not solving themselves: our consumption patterns, particularly our relationship to food and its production, are an ecological and humanitarian disaster. Generating a strong impact of pollutants on biodiversity, deregulating the climate, even affecting our own health (UN 2017, Report of the special rapporteur on the right to food). This is a global issue, but it is all the more relevant to developing countries, and tropical countries in particular. Indeed, in these latitudes, the effects of our overproduction are more strongly felt, greatly impacting already economically fragile populations.

However, solutions do exist:
Agroecology and agroforestry aretwofarmingmethodsthatallow the coexistence of the preservation ofliving organisms (and even the use of the services they provide) and theproduction of food, whileenabling farmers to diversify and secure their production. This, combined with afaireconomy, can greatly improvethe living conditions of farmers.

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That's why all three of us EBO students have decided to go and immerse ourselves in real field conditions next year, to realize the real ecosystemic and socio-economic issues at stake. All this while helping with our acquired knowledge and, of course, our "elbow grease" to carry out environmental and solidarity projects, with a view to exchanging sustainable technical and cultural knowledge between here and there.

The project will therefore run throughout the year with four different "NGOs", all working to improve local living conditions and solve environmental problems (setting up and managing experimental plots, biodiversity inventories...). The project will take place in India, Madagascar, Togo and Colombia, enabling us to discover the 3 different tropical blocks and the different technical and cultural approaches associated with each locality.

The project will be carried out in collaboration with the University of Montpellier's Universlacitéprogram, to enable exchanges between young people from the countries visited and young people from Montpellier.

On the project's return, several conferences will be organized, as well as photographic exhibitions of the journey.

If you would like to find out more (and why not support us?...), we invite you to visit ourFacebook pageand our Instagram page à@projet.taf.PourFor more detailed information, please contact us at projet.taf@outlook.fr.

Winner of the Grand Narbonne National Engineering Challenge

Antonin Arnaud, a student in the Faculty of Science's Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Automation (EEA) department, won first prize in the national engineering challenge last weekend.No less than 100 participants and 14 teams gathered at IN ESS for a first hackathon to present the best innovation.Antonin, who has his pilot's license, is developing an electronic solution to facilitate aircraft landing, to complement existing solutions, particularly for light aviation and small airfields. His team of three engineering students provided him with essential information on the technology to be used and the priority customer target. We can't say any more, as a patent will be filed to protect his idea.A big Bravo Antonin, you're the pride of our Faculty!!!!

Participation in the SWERC competition

Julien Rodriguez, Guillaume Pérution and Mattéo Delabre (left to right)

On January 25 and 26, three students from the Faculty of Science's Computer Science Master's program represented the University at the SWERC programming competition. After five hours of confrontation between the hundred participating teams, École Polytechnique came out on top, while the University of Montpellier took 45th place, up 21 places on the previous year.

Hello Julien, Guillaume and Mattéo, could you introduce yourselves?

We're three friends who've been united by our passion for science and research ever since we met as undergraduates in computer science. We are currently finishing our Masters in Theoretical Computer Science at FDS, and plan to pursue a PhD next year.

How does the contest you entered work?

The SWERC(South Western European Regional Contest)is a computer science competition in which teams of students from all over south-western Europe have been competing since 1995. During the five-hour event, participants are faced with ten problems which they must solve using their acquired knowledge of algorithms and programming.

What sets this competition apart is that each team has access to just one computer, which is not connected to the Internet. In addition to the skills required to solve the problems, team-mates must therefore demonstrate good organization and team cohesion to make it to the top of the table, despite the long duration of the competition.

What motivated you to take part in this competition?

We've had a taste for competitive programming for several years now, notably through online competitions such as those offered byCodeForces(http://codeforces.com/),CodinGame(https://www.codingame.com) orBattleDev(https://battledev.blogdumoderateur.com/).

In addition to the "competitive" atmosphere we enjoy, the educational benefits are numerous: preparing for the event allows us to learn new algorithmic and programming techniques through practical experience, and to practice problem solving. What's more, SWERC is an excellent opportunity to meet other computer science students who share the same passions as we do.

Was this your first time taking part?

The first team representing the university, formed in 2017 on the initiative of our friend Nabil Kherraf, already included Mattéo. Since last year, our trio has taken over. Each time we have taken part, it has been a memorable and enriching experience. Over the years, we've managed to climb from 70th place in 2017 to 45th place this year, and we hope that the team that succeeds us in 2020 will do even better.

So you won't be taking part next year?

We'd love to take part again, but the competition is reserved for bachelor's and master's students, so we're going to have to give up our place. This is a good opportunity to invite all those interested in taking part in next year's competition to contact us now! We are in the process of putting together the team(s) that will represent the university next year.

When will the next edition take place?

Registration generally begins in September, with the competition starting in December. Information will be posted in due course on the SWERC website(https://swerc.eu).

You can contact us by email at the following addresses: