| Copyright © P. Albou, 1997. Last updated 12/03/2022. |
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Pierre Albou |
This page deals with myself and
provides links to interesting web sites related to me.
Who am I ? | What do I do
? | What I like (and dislike) |
How to contact me
I was born in Paris (France) in 1965. My father, now retired, is a well known professor in the field of psychology and sociology (he worked at the René Descartes university in Paris, published many books and is still writing new ones). My mother cooks marvellously and passed on to me her liking for classical music.
I graduated in 1988 from the Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité (generally known as SupElec), a french Grande Ecole (something that does not exist elsewhere in the world, so if you are not french, don't try and guess its academic standard: it is higher than any university, at least in France). I hold an electrical engineering degree from SupElec.
Since I have been interested in technical and scientific research since childhood, I decided to prepare a PhD degree, which I received in 1991 (my thesis dealt with electrical gas discharges). I hold this degree from the Paris VI university (also know as Université Pierre et Marie Curie).
Here are links to SupElec's and Pierre et Marie Curie university's web sites:
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I have been working for Valeo (lighting systems division) since 1988. The company paid for my PhD degree. Half of all expenses were refunded to Valeo by the french government, so that the research I made for them (the company had chosen the subject of the thesis, with the university professors) was not expensive at all (this system, called Cifre, was invented to promote research in industry, because, up to now, french science and technology has nearly always been state funded and controlled).
I held different jobs inside Valeo, but always in the research department of the lighting systems division. The exact content of my work is of course confidential, but I may say that it combines applied mathematics, physics (electromagnetism ...) and programming number crunching applications (I don't like calling `development' this kind of programming, because the really tough part of the job lies in the numerical analysis, not in the programs themselves).
I hold 343 patents* and wrote 25 published technical papers. (To be precise, my name appears on 343 patents as inventor, but Valeo gets all the royalties).
I am also member of Valeo's Comité Social et Economique, formerly Comité d'Entreprise (a body elected by all members of the company at the location where I work - in Bobigny, north of Paris - and funded by the company - it is mandatory in France, by law; the Comité Social et Economique try and organize social and cultural events for the company's members and has further responsibilities in matters of safety at work, workers health, etc).
Beside my job in Valeo, I taught for several years electrical and illumination engineering at the ESCPI (an engineering school of the CNAM, in Marne la Vallée, near Paris). From 2017 to 2020, I conducted a seminar in the framework of the ELS chair.
Here are links to Valeo (one of the few french multinational companies) and the official Cifre page:
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I like:
2 minutes of the second
movement of Joseph Haydn's string quartet Op.76 #5: click
here 
I heartily dislike:
Just send an e-mail. You may use the following languages:
You may even try latin, but I will badly need my dictionaries.
* First filings only, filed from 1988 to April 2021 (included).