Emmanuel Hugot


Emmanuel H. Hugot is a French astrophysicist. known for his contribution to the developments of new technologies that help to improve telescopes used by professional astronomers around the world. This includes the development of more efficient curved detectors, but also improvements in the manufacturing methods for optical elements and active optics systems. The technologies developed by Hugot and his group are used on the SPHERE instrument mounted on the European Very Large Telescope, which is used to detect exoplanets.

Academic career

From 2015 to 2019, he was head of the R&D group in optics and instrumentation at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, gathering about 30 persons. He obtained his PhD entitled “Astronomical Optics and elasticity theory” at the Aix Marseille University, France in 2007. He supervised or co-supervised twelve PhD students between 2009 and 2021.

Awards

In 2018 and 2019, the French Academy of Technologies selected him as a finalist for the Jean Jerphagnon Prize, awarding young researchers starting entrepreneurship in the field of photonics.
In 2017 Hugot was awarded the MERAC early career prize for new technologies by the European Astronomical Society for his unique and pioneering work on innovative astronomical instrumentation, based on active systems, freeform optics and curved focal planes.
In 2017 he was awarded a Bronze medal by the French National Center for Scientific Research
In 2016 he was awarded a prestigious 2 million euros starting grant by the European Research Council for his project ICARUS.
In 2014 he was awarded the young researcher prize by French Society of Astronomy & Astrophysics