# Sylvain Girard's scientific page


I lead the “Reliability & Robustness” team at [Phimeca Engineering Paris](http://phimeca.com/).

We use applied mathematics and physical modelling to help designing, operating and maintaining industrial system safely and efficiently.

My topics of interest include

* **From data and simulation to decision** -- Modelling *creates* uncertainty. This is a bad product: people mostly want to get rid of it. We help our partners to shift from the illusion of complete control to robust risk management and efficient decision processes.

* **Embracing complexity** -- *Complexity* also bears negative connotation. Yet, complex systems have emergent behaviours that go far beyond those of their parts: otherwise we would stick to hammer an nails kind of technologies (sometimes we should). We tackle this by dimension reduction, deep learning, and system scale (0D/1D multi-physics) modelling.

* **From R&D to something else**  -- Modelling is a tribal activity: a small group share tacit (=hard to transcribe) knowledge of great potential. Good ideas often lead to good R&D. Often, good R&D leads to… good ideas at best. We help partners to widen the innovation spiral and produce concrete outcomes.

* **AI, Animal Intelligence** -- I am always ready to discuss opportunities for new cooperation of any kind.

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## News

* [Francesco Cancelliere](https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-cancelliere/) defended his thesis with brio. The manuscript is [online](https://theses.hal.science/tel-05395072).

* November 2025 -- The 7th Researcher--Engineer Gathering, “[Math et Cerveau](https://seminaire.phimeca.com/)”, will took place on 20th November 2025 at [IHP](http://ihp.fr/). Register online at: <https://seminaire.phimeca.com/>.
Slides are available [online](https://seminaire.phimeca.com/).

* February 2025 -- Our article “Accurate and fast prediction of radioactive pollution by Kriging coupled with Auto-Associative Models” is available [online](https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2024-3838/).


### Recent and upcoming talks

* 2026/2/3 -- The [IMPACT project](https://www.afd.fr/fr/projets/projet-impact-un-partenariat-academique-pour-accompagner-le-developpement-de-lecole) team kindly invited me to talk during a mathematical dissemination conference. I told anecdotes about the pitfalls of modelling from research and design to effective use. Why many engineering problems are still open since decades? [`[🗎 get slides]`](https://sylvaingirard.net/pdf/talk/girard26-anecdotes_modeles_pragmatiques.pdf)


* 2024/10/14→17/ -- [λμ24](https://www.imdr-lambdamu.eu/) hosted by [Institut de Maîtrise des Risques (IMdR)](https://www.imdr.eu/). I presented the first results of the [POLIVAL](research/polival) project: “'Uncertainty': the elephant in the living rooom of soil pollution management?.” [`[🗎 get slides]`](https://sylvaingirard.net/pdf/talk/LM24_cloudspotting_eode_phimeca.pdf)

* 2024/10/11 -- [TSP day](https://thermosyspro.com/journeeTSP/) organised by EDF and Phimeca. I presented “HeatXSysPro: From Excel to robust tool for Air Fan Coolers performance assessment” [`[🗎 get slides]`](https://thermosyspro.com/journeeTSP/assets/presentations/06_Phimeca_EDVANCE_HeatXSysPro.pdf)

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## Content


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