Valérie Berthé (born 16 December 1968) is a French mathematician who works as a director of research for the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

(CNRS) at the Institut de Recherche en Informatique Fondamentale (IRIF), a joint project between CNRS and

Paris Diderot University Paris Diderot University, also known as Paris 7 (), was a French university located in Paris, France. It was one of the inheritors of the historic University of Paris, which was split into 13 universities in 1970. Paris Diderot merged with Pari ...

. Her research involves

symbolic dynamics In mathematics, symbolic dynamics is the study of dynamical systems defined on a discrete space consisting of infinite sequences of abstract symbols. The evolution of the dynamical system is defined as a simple shift of the sequence. Because of t ...

combinatorics on words Combinatorics on words is a fairly new field of mathematics, branching from combinatorics, which focuses on the study of words and formal languages. The subject looks at letters or symbols, and the sequences they form. Combinatorics on words ...

discrete geometry Discrete geometry and combinatorial geometry are branches of geometry that study combinatorial properties and constructive methods of discrete geometric objects. Most questions in discrete geometry involve finite or discrete sets of basic geom ...

numeral system A numeral system is a writing system for expressing numbers; that is, a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using digits or other symbols in a consistent manner. The same sequence of symbols may represent differe ...

tessellation A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety ...

s, and

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a Shape, geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scale ...

Education

Berthé completed her baccalauréat at age 16, and studied at the

École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

from 1988 to 1993. She earned a licentiate and master's degree in pure mathematics from

Pierre and Marie Curie University Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...

in 1989, a

Diplôme d'études approfondies A Master of Advanced Studies (MASt or MAS), or Master of Advanced Study, is a postgraduate degree awarded in various countries. Master of Advanced Studies programs may be non-consecutive programs tailored for "specific groups of working professio ...

from

University of Paris-Sud Paris-Sud University (), also known as the University of Paris — XI (or as the Orsay Faculty of Sciences, University of Paris before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, ...

in 1991, completed her

agrégation In France, the () is the most competitive and prestigious examination for civil service in the French public education A state school, public school, or government school is a primary school, primary or secondary school that educates all stu ...

in 1992, and was recruited by CNRS in 1993. Continuing her graduate studies, she defended a doctoral thesis in 1994 at the

University of Bordeaux 1 The University of Bordeaux 1 () was one of the four universities in the Academy of Bordeaux, together with the Bordeaux Segalen University (Bordeaux 2), Michel de Montaigne University (Bordeaux 3) and Montesquieu University (Bordeaux 4). On 1 ...

. Her dissertation, ''Fonctions de Carlitz et automates: Entropies conditionnelles'' was supervised by Jean-Paul Allouche. She completed a

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in 1999, again under the supervision of Allouche, at the University of the Mediterranean Aix-Marseille II; her habilitation thesis was ''Étude arithmétique et dynamique de suites algorithmiques''.

Research

Berthé's research spans the area of symbolic dynamics, combinatorics on words, numeration systems and discrete geometry. She has recently made significant process in the study of S-adic dynamical systems, and also of continued fractions in higher dimensions.

Associations

Berthé is a vice-president of the

Société mathématique de France Groupe Lactalis S.A. (doing business as Lactalis) is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier S.A. Lactalis is the largest dairy pr ...

(SMF), and director of publications for the SMF. She has played an active role in

L'association femmes et mathématiques L'Association is a Franco-Belgian publishing houses, French publishing house located in Paris which publishes comic books. It was founded in May 1990 by Jean-Christophe Menu, Lewis Trondheim, David B., Mattt Konture, Patrice Killoffer, Stanislas ( ...

. Berthé has also been associated with the

M. Lothaire M. Lothaire is the pseudonym of a group of mathematicians, many of whom were students of Marcel-Paul Schützenberger. The name is used as the author of several of their joint books about combinatorics on words. The group is named for Lothair I.. ...

pseudonymous mathematical collaboration on

and the Pythias Fogg pseudonymous collaboration on substitution systems.

Recognition

In 2013, Berthé was elevated to the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Berthe, Valerie 1968 births Living people 20th-century French mathematicians French women mathematicians Knights of the Legion of Honour 21st-century French mathematicians Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research