Proud of our students

The Chemistry Master's Program team from the Faculty of Sciences shines at the French Chemists' Tournament

What is the French Chemists' Tournament?
This is a competition featuring seven institutions (ENS, ENS Lyon, ENS Paris Saclay, École Polytechnique, Chimie ParisTech, ESPCI, and the University of Montpellier).
Seven enthusiastic and motivated teams competed on March 25 and 26, 2022, at Chimie ParisTech in a scientific debate competition. During these marathon scientific debates, the teams took on different roles, requiring students to take turns presenting findings, critiquing and debating another team’s work, or moderating a scientific debate.

In its first appearance, our team won the bronze medal, finishing ahead of prestigious institutions such as ENS Paris Saclay, École Polytechnique, ENS Lyon, and Chimie ParisTech.
One of our students, Bruna Rafaela Pereira-Resende, was also awarded the Best Opponent Award for her eloquence.
This achievement is the result of the outstanding work carried out by our team of students and faculty members, demonstrating the excellence of our chemistry programs within the School of Science

Codige Award

IESF – OM CODIGE 2020 AWARD CEREMONY

VFriday, October 16, 2020, at 6:00 p.m. – Lecture Hall 36.01

IESF OM, in partnership with Codige, organizes an annual award to recognize the best internship reports.
This year, the first prize will be awarded to Clara Erard, a student in the Master’s program in Ecology and Biodiversity Management.

Each year, nearly1,000 master’s-level internships—both in France and abroad, lasting at least six months—are completed by students in the Faculty of Sciences.

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

Winners are selectedbased on a review of theirfinal internship reports, which must cover a period of at least six months and describe internships completed by the candidates at a company.
These internships may cover a variety of fields, such as life sciences, materials science, the health and biology sector, technology in general, economics, and management…

The selection process takes place in two stages: first, the director or president of each participating institution selects and submits two internship reports for Master’s 2 students; then, the final selection and ranking of the successful candidates is carried out by a jury composed of engineers, faculty members, scientists, and industry representatives.

The evaluation criteria takeinto account the quality of the project, how well it fits into the company’s strategy, and the candidate’s mastery of the subject matter. The intern’s involvement in the company, their writing skills, and their communication effectiveness are also considered. The innovative nature of the study and its results, as well as the quality of the link between the analysis and the proposed actions, are all factors that are also taken into account to highlight the scientific and technical value of the intern’s work.

TAF Project (Tropical Agroforestry)

Who are we?

Thibault Martino (21), Justin Rousset (21), and Léa Pouget (22), three students in their final year of the Bio-Eco Bachelor’s program at the FDS. All three of us plan to pursue a Master’s degree in tropical plant ecology and/or agricultural systems, which will allow us to acquire new skills for our respective professional projects.
=> Thibault plans to build his future by working alongside local communities to develop sustainable agriculture based on agroforestry and agroecology techniques.
=> Justin is interested in the management and conservation of tropical natural areas, a source of biodiversity essential to understanding ecosystems.
=> Léa would like to get involved in applied research, working to balance biodiversity with community forest use.

Check out the whole project by clicking here!!!

A description of our project

Despite the pandemic, the world keeps moving forward, and our problems won’t solve themselves: our consumption patterns—particularly our relationship with food and its production—are an ecological and humanitarian disaster. They generate a significant impact of pollutants on biodiversity, disrupt the climate, and even affect our own health (UN 2017,Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food).This is a global issue, but it affects developing countries all the more, and tropical countries in particular. Indeed, in these regions, the effects of our overproduction are felt more acutely, which greatly impacts populations that are already economically vulnerable.

However, solutions do exist:
Agroecology and agroforestryare two farming methods thatallow for the coexistence ofbiodiversity conservation(and even the use of the services it provides) andfood production, whileenabling farmers to diversify and secure their production. Combined witha fair economy, thiscangreatly improve farmers’ living conditions.

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That iswhy the three of us, as EBO students, have decided to spend next year immersing ourselves in real-world conditions on the ground to gain a true understanding of the current ecological and socioeconomic challenges. We’ll do all this by applying our acquired knowledge and, of course, our hard work to help carry out environmental and community-based projects, with the goal of fostering a lasting exchange of technical and cultural knowledge between here and there.

The project will therefore run throughout the year in collaboration with four different NGOs, all of which are dedicated to improving the living conditions of local communities and addressing environmental issues (such as establishing and managing experimental plots and conducting biodiversity surveys). It will take place in India, Madagascar, Togo, and Colombia in order to explore the three different tropical regions as well as the various technical and cultural approaches associated with each location.

The project will be carried out in collaboration with the University of Montpellier’sUniverlacité programto facilitate exchanges between young people from the countries visited and young people in Montpellier.

Upon the project's return, several conferences will be held, along with photo exhibitions documenting the journey.

If you’d like to learn more (and why not support us?), we invite you tovisit our Facebook pageand our Instagram page à@projet.taf.Pour. For more detailed information, please contact us atprojet.taf@outlook.fr.

Winner of the Grand Narbonne National Engineering Challenge

Antonin Arnaud, a student in the Department of Electronics, Electrical Engineering, and Automation (EEA) at the Faculty of Sciences, won first prize in the national engineering challenge last weekend.No fewer than 100 participants and 14 teams gathered at IN’ESS for the first hackathon to showcase the best innovation.Antonin, who holds a pilot’s license, is developing an electronic solution to make it easier for planes to land, complementing existing solutions, particularly in the areas of light aviation and small airfields. His team of three engineering students provided him with essential insights into the technology to be used and the priority customer base. Shh! We can’t say any more, because a patent is about to be filed to protect his idea. A big congratulations, Antonin—you are the pride of our Faculty!!!

Participation in the SWERC competition

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

On January 25 and 26, three students from the Master’s in Computer Science program at the Faculty of Sciences represented the University at the SWERC programming competition. After five hours of competition among the 100 participating teams, École Polytechnique emerged victorious, while the University of Montpellier finished in 45th place, a rise of 21 spots compared to the previous year.

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

We are three friends who have been close ever since we met while pursuing our bachelor’s degrees in computer science, united by our passion for science and research. We are currently completing our master’s degrees in theoretical computer science at the FDS and plan to pursue a Ph.D. 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 across southwestern Europe have competed annually since 1995. During the five-hour competition, participants are presented with ten problems that they must solve by applying their knowledge of algorithms and programming.

What sets this competition apart is that each team has access to only one computer that is not connected to the internet. In addition to the problem-solving skills required, team members must therefore demonstrate strong organizational skills and teamwork to climb to the top of the leaderboard, despite the competition’s long duration.

What motivated you to enter this contest?

It’s been several years now since we first got into competitive programming, particularly through online contests such as those offered byCodeForces(http://codeforces.com/),CodinGame(https://www.codingame.com),and Battle Dev(https://battledev.blogdumoderateur.com/).

In addition to the competitive atmosphere that we enjoy, there are numerous educational benefits: preparing for the competition allows us to learn new algorithmic and programming techniques through hands-on practice and to hone our problem-solving skills. SWERC is also an excellent opportunity to meet other computer science students who share our passions.

Was this your first time participating?

The first team representing the university, formed in 2017 at the initiative of our friend Nabil Kherraf, already included Mattéo. Since last year, our trio has taken over. Each time we’ve participated, it has been a memorable and very rewarding experience for us. Over the course of these editions of the competition, we’ve managed to climb from 70th place in 2017 to 45th this year, and we hope that the team succeeding us in 2020 will do even better.

So you won't be participating next year?

We would have loved to enter again, but the competition is open only to undergraduate and graduate students, so we’ll have to pass this time. This is a great opportunity to invite anyone interested in participating in next year’s competition to contact us right away! We are currently putting together the team or teams that will represent the university next year.

When will the next event take place?

Registration typically begins in September, and the competition takes place in December. Further details will be posted in due course on the SWERC website (https://swerc.eu).

You can contact us by email at the following addresses: