Dr Thomas Pezeril, CNRS, France

Thomas Pezeril is a Principal Investigator at CNRS in France, at the Institut de Physique de Rennes. He received a BSc degree in Physics and a PhD from the University of Le Mans. He then joined MIT as a Postdoctoral Fellow for two years. He is now a renowned expert in laser ultrasonics, from very high frequencies in the GHz-THz frequency range, to extreme pressures in the Mbar range. He designed several pioneering laser ultrasonics experiments, such as an experiment allowing the GHz ultrasonic probing of shear properties of ultra-thin liquids, a single shot laser-induced 2D shock focusing technique for the delivery of local shock pressures close to the Mbar range, and, more recently, a technique that allows the non-destructive optical excitation of shock waves in a sample from coherent additive superposition of numerous strain waves. A portion of his achievements have been managed in close collaboration with the Keith Nelson group at MIT where he recently spent a two year research sabbatical.