Yves Bréchet

Yves Bréchet ([bʁeʃɛ]; born 12 October 1961) is a physicist, specialist of materials science,currently Scientific director of Saint Gobain compagny, and professor at Monash and McMaster university, and a member of the French Academy of Sciences.

Yves Bréchet graduated from École Polytechnique (1981), École des hautes études en sciences sociales (1992) and obtained his doctoral degree and habilitation from Joseph Fourier University in 1987 and 1992, respectively.

He has beena full professor at Grenoble INP/Phelma between 1987 and 2012, an adjunct professor of materials science and engineering at McMaster University (Canada), a senior Research Professor at the Institut Universitaire de France, and a member of the SIMaP (Materials and Processes Science and Engineering) Laboratory with the University of Grenoble.

On November 30, 2010, he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences.

He has beena member of the international scientific council of ArcelorMittal and the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique, and a scientific advisor to Rio Tinto Alcan, EDF and ONERA, as well as several editing boards of scientific journals

On September 19, 2012, he is named to the position of High Commissioner for Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies by the Council of Ministers of the French Republic, succeeding Catherine Cesarsky.

He resigned from this position in 2018, and is now Scientific director of Saint Gobain compagny, while keeping a position as Reseach professor in Monash university, adjunct professor in McMaster university and advisory professor in Jiaotong university. Since 2018 he is giving a course on "scieitic analysis for political decisions" in Econe Natioanle d'Administration He is also president of the Scientfic council of Framatome, and president of the scientific coucil of the fontation "Maisons pour les sciences"

His activities span the fields of physical metallurgy, thermodynamics, microstructures, phase transformations, plasticity, fracture micromechanics, material selection, structural materials design, biointerfaces, structural biomimetics. He has written more than 600 papers and co-authored 6 books and supervised more than 80 PhD

He has beena member of the international scientific council of ArcelorMittal and the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique, and a scientific advisor to Rio Tinto Alcan, EDF and ONERA.

• Pechiney Prize of the French Academy of Sciences (1990)
• Gledden Fellowship, University of Western Australia (1993)
• Materials Science and Technology Prize of FEMS (1995)
• Körber European Science Award (1996), (together with M. Ashby and M. Rappaz)
• Junior Fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France (1992–97)
• Weinberg Lecture, University of British Columbia, Canada (2003)
• Sawamura and Guimaraes awards from ISIJ, Japan (2006)
• Cohen Lectures, Northwestern University (2006)
• D.K.McDonald Lecture, Canada (2007)
• CNRS Silver Medal (2009)
• Max Planck Lecture, Max Planck Institute for Metals Research, Stuttgart (2009)
• Thermec Distinguished award (2009)
• Senior Fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France
• Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur (2010)
• Lee Hsun Research Award, China (2010)
• Henry Marion Howe Medal (2010)
• Prix Gay-Lussac-Humboldt (2010)
• Member of the French Academy of Sciences(2010)

- Member of the Academia Europea (2011) - Wolf-Ramanujan lecture () (2012) - Docteur Honoris Causa de l'Université de McMaster (2012) - Professor at College de France, annual chair“Innovation andTechnology” (2012-2013) - Grande medaille de la Société Française de Métallurgie et Materiaux (2013) - Cambridge Granta award for excellence in teaching in materials science (2018) - Jiaotong University “Master Distinguished lecture” (2018) - Kelly lecture"Armours and Brasiers" ( Cambridge 2019) - Docteur Honoris Causa de l'Université Catholique de Louvain (2019)