Welcome in my PhD blog!

Since we have to begin somewhere, this is the first post of my PhD blog. In October 2017, I started a PhD whose subject is “A Global and flexible approach for modeling and solving the reserve selection problem”. This is an interdisciplinary project which lies at the crossroad between applied mathematics, computer science and conservation biology. I am candidate with the GAIA doctoral school at the University of Montpellier. I am hosted by the AMAP joint research unit, and I split my time between its french implantation in Montpellier, its new caledonian implantation in Nouméa, and the TASC research team in Nantes. My PhD is funded by the Cirad and the IAC. Finally, My PhD directors are Philippe Birnbaum (Cirad/AMAP, Botany and forest ecology) and Xavier Lorca (IMT Atlantique/LS2N, Graph theory and constraint programming).

I think that writing about your work is great, and sharing it is even better. In research, we solve different types of problems every day: finding a good reference about a particular topic, learning how to use a library, how to build a PhD blog, finding useful tricks for the field, etc. Writing about this is a good way to cristalize this day-to-day knowledge, and sharing it on the internet is a way to help others that could face the same kind of problems. Actually, this is what a huge part of the internet is about: sharing human knowledge and practices.

Beyond that aspect, I also see the PhD blog as a way to keep a written and shared trace of the PhD experience, which is, from what I have seen around me (I am only starting mine), something intense in a scientist’s life.