Permanent members
Jérémie is a CNRS senior research scientist at the Institut de Physique de Nice and a member of the Calisto project team at Centre Inria d’Université Côte d’Azur. His research combines theoretical and numerical approaches to study turbulence, particle transport, out-of-equilibrium processes and cloud microphysics. Alongside his research, he contributes to teaching, student supervision and scientific mentoring. His academic responsibilities include coordinating the Soft Matter axis at INPHYNI; he has also led the UCA Complex Systems Academy and served as President of the Université Côte d’Azur Academic Council.
Personal website, Scholar, Research gate, ORCID
Bertin Vincent
Vincent Bertin is a CNRS researcher at the Institut de Physique de Nice. His research lies at the interface between fluid mechanics, soft matter and contact mechanics, with a particular focus on lubrication, adhesion and friction involving soft and rough surfaces.
His work combines theoretical modelling, asymptotic analysis and numerical simulations to understand how fluid flow, surface deformation and solid contact interact at small scales. His current research includes elastohydrodynamic and viscoelastic lubrication, contactless adhesion mediated by viscous fluids, mixed lubrication and friction on rough surfaces, as well as the mechanics of wear and fragmentation.
Website, Scholar, Research Gate, ORCID
His research explores randomness across a wide range of natural phenomena, including quantum mechanics, stochastic thermodynamics, and nonequilibrium physics. He also has scientific interest in perhaps the most unpredictable system of all: football. He is currently in sabbatical in the IRL Lysm, in Roma until December 2026.
Webpage, Scholar
Thomas Frisch is a full professor at Université Côte d’Azur. His background is in nonlinear and out-of-equilibrium physics, and he is a specialist of the nonlinear defocusing Schrödinger equation (Gross–Pitaevskii equation). His work is characterized by a strong emphasis on understanding how complex structures emerge from relatively simple nonlinear equations.
His research has addressed superfluidity and vortex nucleation (see here), morphological instabilities and self-organization in strained silicon-germanium films (see here), and the levitation of Leidenfrost droplets (see here). These studies combine nonlinear dynamics and fluid mechanics, often in collaboration with experimentalists. His toolbox includes asymptotic analysis, bifurcation theory, complex mapping, and numerical simulations of partial differential equations.
Thomas was director of the Doeblin Federation from 2017 to 2023 and received the Prix Gustave Ribaud of the French Academy of Sciences in 2014, together with Jean-Noël Aqua. He teaches mechanics, elasticity, thermodynamics and numerical simulation at the undergraduate level, and nonlinear waves in hydrodynamics at the graduate level.
Scholar, ORCID
Giorgio’s scientific work focuses on analytical and numerical studies of out-of-equilibrium complex systems, including classical and quantum turbulent fluids and the transport of particles by turbulent flows. He is particularly interested in applications of statistical mechanics and dynamical systems to the modelling and understanding of multi-scale systems. A major focus of his research is superfluid turbulence, in particular the dynamics and interactions of quantum vortices. More broadly, his interests include statistical mechanics, nonlinear science and the theoretical aspects of turbulence.
Website, ORCID, Scholar
Sergey is Research Director at CNRS.
Jacques-Alexandre Sepulchre is assistant professor at Université Côte d’Azur since 1997, where he teaches amongst others Statistical physics, Thermodynamics, Quantum mechanics and Dynamical systems. His current research interest is on the dynamics of intracellular signaling cascades (e.g. MAPK) in systems biology. He is currently Director of the Department of Physics and Astrophysics of the University Côte d’Azur.
Eric Simonnet joined CNRS in 2002 as a Chargé de recherche in geophysics and moved in 2022 to the theoretical-physics section as a Chargé de recherche hors classe (CRHC). His background is in applied mathematics, spanning dynamical systems and ergodic theory, PDEs, numerics, statistical physics and large-deviation theory. His earlier work concerned dynamical-systems approaches to geophysical fluid dynamics and rare-event analysis in quasi-geostrophic flows.
Since 2022, one main direction of his research has been machine-learning approaches to theoretical physics, including rare transition paths and large-deviation minimizers, nonequilibrium phase transitions in active matter, and singularity formation in turbulence. From 2027, this activity will extend to semi-supervised diffusion-based AI methods for mid-latitude oceanic circulation within the ANR PINOT project.
A second direction concerns turbulence and turbulent transport, with a strong focus on spontaneous stochasticity: the emergence of statistical behaviour from singular limits of deterministic dynamics. A related interest is the Feigenbaum–Mailybaev renormalization-group framework and its extension from shell models to more general singular and multiscale dynamical systems.
He has been working on turbulence-inspired research problems involving an interplay between singularities and predictability, with a particular focus on the statistical modeling of intermittency, blowup scenarios in fluid models, and the spontaneous stochasticity phenomenon.
Website, Scholar
Giovanna is Full Professor at the Université Côte d'Azur.
Students and Postdocs
Angriman Sofia
Sofía Angriman is a physicist specialising in fluid dynamics and turbulence, with a PhD in Physics from the University of Buenos Aires and previous postdoctoral experience at the University of Twente. At INPHYNI, she studies the dynamics of fibres in wall-bounded turbulent flows by combining laboratory experiments with direct numerical simulations. She carries out this research in collaboration with Christophe Brouzet and Jérémie Bec.
Calascibetta Chiara
Chiara Calascibetta is a theoretical physicist whose research combines statistical physics, turbulence, dynamical systems and control theory; she obtained her PhD from the University of Rome Tor Vergata in 2024. She uses large-scale simulations, optimal control and reinforcement learning to study particle transport and the collective navigation of active matter in complex flows. Working with Jérémie Bec, she is now developing the MSCA project DragREACT on the dynamics, transport and control of elongated particles in wall-bounded turbulence.
Carreno Donoso Jorge
Jorge completed his Licenciatura at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Chilli in Santiago
Costa Guillaume
Postdoctoral researcher with a background in fluid dynamics and statistical physics. His research focuses on acoustic wave turbulence, fluid dynamics, and statistical physics. He collaborates with Giorgio Krstulovic and Sergey Nazarenko.
Kalfa Benjamin
Kolluru Kiran
Lohani Chandra Shekhar
Chandra Shekhar Lohani completed his PhD at IIT Kharagpur in 2026 and has a strong background in rotating, stratified and geophysical turbulence. His research uses direct numerical simulations to investigate dimensional transitions, energy transfers, intermittency and mixing in strongly anisotropic turbulent flows. At INPHYNI and the Laboratoire J.-A. Dieudonné, he develops this work with Jérémie Bec and Dario Vincenzi, focusing on the statistical and mathematical description of flexible particles in turbulence.
Li Long
Long Li has been postdoc in the team since 2025. He obtained his PhD in 2021 at Inria Rennes on the "Stochastic modeling and numerical simulation of ocean dynamics".
He is currently working on numerical and theoretical aspects of scalar transport in rough velocity fields.
His webpage: https://matlong.github.io/
Reartes Christian De Jesus
Christian De Jesus Reartes is a physicist who obtained his PhD from the University of Buenos Aires in 2025, studying particle transport and extreme events in atmospheric and oceanic turbulence. In collaboration with Laetitia Giraldi from the Centre Inria d’Université Côte d’Azur and Jérémie Bec at INPHYNI, he develops boundary-element and numerical methods for immersed fibres and filament swimmers, including their deformation and interaction with surrounding flows.
Scollo Simone
Postdoctoral researcher specialising in fluid dynamics and turbulence. His research focuses on quantum vortex dynamics, fluid dynamics, and mixing in quantum and classical systems. He collaborates with Giorgio Krstulovic and Luca Galantucci (Roma).
Sun Defa
Defa Sun is a PhD student at INPHYNI. He combines laboratory experiments and numerical simulations to study long rigid fibres in turbulent channel flows, with particular attention to confinement, settling, orientation and tumbling near walls. His doctoral research is co-supervised by Christophe Brouzet and Jérémie Bec.
Tibone Gregorio
PhD student focusing on theoretical and mathematical approaches to turbulence. His research includes wave turbulence theory and functional renormalisation group. He collaborates with Giorgio Krstulovic and Leonie Canet (Grenoble).
Zirilli Giovanni Francesco
Giovanni Francesco (Gianfranco) Zirilli trained in physics at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and joined the Nice team after a Master’s project devoted to fundamental problems in turbulence. He studies theoretical and numerical models of turbulent cascades, focusing on departures from self-similarity, large deviations, spontaneous stochasticity and possible renormalisation-group descriptions. His PhD is supervised by Jérémie Bec and contributes to the team’s broader research programme on the foundations and unpredictability of turbulence.