Daniel SCHERTZER

Daniel Schertzer is professor of Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), director of the Chair “Hydrology for Resilient Cities”, Visiting Professor at Imperial College London (ICL), General Engineer of Corps of Bridges, Water and Forest (Honorary).

Previous positions: National Centre for Meteorological Research (Météo-France), Laboratory of Dynamical Meteorology (National Scientific Research Centre, CNRS), Institute Jean Le Rond d’Alembert (Sorbonne University).

Stays abroad: Californian Institute of Technology (Pasadena, USA), National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, USA), McGill University (Montreal, Canada), IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights, USA), Space Research Institute (Moscow, Russia) and Clemson University (Clemson, USA).

Education: He graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts (Meteorology speciality), Habilitation (Professor dissertation) defended at Sorbonne University.

Research: Daniel Schertzer’s research focuses on the complexity of geophysical and environmental systems, and more recently on urban systems. He initiated the urban geosciences theme to develop holistic approaches to interactions between urban and geophysical systems, a key factor in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Daniel Schertzer has put a strong emphasis on intermittency, a kind of squared variability (see Nobel recognition of its fundamental role): extreme events are then concentrated in small fractions of space-time. Daniel Schertzer is thus recognised as a pioneer in the development of multifractals, particularly in turbulence, meteorology, hydrology and climate (see Richardson medal citation). He has introduced several concepts and formalisms, such as: universal multifractals, codimension formalism, multifractal transitions, scaling anisotropy and generalised scale invariance. More recently, he has developed a formalism for multifractal vector fields, which strengthens their theoretical and applied stakes.
He has always taken care to shorten the time between conceptualisation and application. Thus, universal multifractals have become a fairly systematic framework for the analysis of complex systems, notably for evaluating the performance of sensors, measurement protocols and resilience and/or prediction capabilities.
He also ensures the cross-fertilisation of different approaches. For example, deep learning with multifractals for nowcasting is being developed. The same applies to climate networks in collaboration with the Potsdam Institute for Climate.

Teaching and training: in addition to interventions on complex systems in various courses, Daniel Schertzer has represented the School for the ParisTech Master in Water, Soil and Waste Management. He organised the e-course of “Introduction to Complex Systems in the Environment” in the framework of the Digital University of Engineering and Technology fondation, even before any containment measure. He has (co-) directed more than thirty theses, five of which are in progress. He has also supervised about fifteen postdocs.

Public service: he has been a council member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the European Geosciences Union (EGU), the bureau of the International Association for Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), vice-president of the French National Committee of Geophysics and Geodesy and a member of the executive committee of the European Academy of Wind Energy. He currently chairs the International Group on Urban Rainfall of the International Water Association and is a member of the board of the Digital Campus on Complex Systems (UNESCO), the Global Urban Governance Think Tank Alliance (Shanghai), the New Frontiers Committee of the AGU College of Fellows, the Publication Committee of EGU, the “non-linear” executive committees of AGU and EGU, the Higher Council of Meteorology (Météo-France), the climate group of the French Water Partnership.

Publications: he is co-author of one book (Cambridge University Press), co-editor of 3 books, (co-) author of 200 Web of Science indexed publications with 8500 citations and an impact factor of H=45 (224, 9500 and 48 respectively for Scopus, H=65 and over 1700 citations for Google Scholar).
Daniel Schertzer is executive editor of the journal Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics and member of the Advisory Board of the journal Urban Governance (Elsevier). He is co-author of a European patent.

Honours: Elected Fellow and Lorenz Lecturer of the American Geophysical Union, Silver Medal of the City of Paris and Lewis Fry Richardson Medal of the European Geosciences Union.

Photo: yannpiriou.fr/SMD