Philippe Courtier

Philippe Courtier, age 54, graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, and from Ecole Nationale de la Météorologie, and holds a PhD from the University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris).

Formerly a researcher at Météo-France and then at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, UK, he was head of operational meteorological programmes at the French Space Agency (CNES) (1995-1997) and later Director of the Laboratoire d'Océanographie Dynamique et de Climatologie (1998) (Oceanographic and Climate Research Laboratory). He was in charge of the operational oceanography project Mercator (1997-1998).

He was Deputy Chief Executive of  Météo-France from 1999 to 2004.

He was Director of the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées from 2004 to June, 2012 and was in charge of the company responsible for the MBA of the School and the school’s executive education subsidiary - the biggest executive education division by turnover of any French engineering school.  He was also second Vice-President of ParisTech, the Paris Institute of Technology that groups 12 of Paris’ Grandes Ecoles. 

He has published numerous papers in major international journals and has been distinguished by a prize of the French Académie des Sciences and from the British Royal Meteorological Society.  He chaired the world weather research programme scientific committee. He is chevalier de la Légion d’honneur.