2025 Research Internship Awards Ceremony

Fifty research internship awards were presented at a ceremony that highlighted the quality of the work carried out, illustrated the diversity of fields offered by École Polytechnique, and emphasized the importance of fundamental and applied research in the academic careers of École Polytechnique students.

"At École Polytechnique, research is more than just an academic exercise: it is a journey toward discovery, innovation, and impact. Whether in laboratories, public institutions, or private R&D, each of our students pushes the boundaries of knowledge, embodying the values we hold dear: rigor, creativity, and the relentless pursuit of progress," emphasized Dominique Rossin, Director of Education and Research at École Polytechnique, at the opening of the ceremony.

Fifty prizes were awarded to a total of around 850 engineering students at École Polytechnique or students enrolled in the IP Paris Master's program or MSc&T program. “This is a great achievement, even though all of the internship reports were of a very high standard,” added Dominique Rossin. 

The award-winning research internship reports are first selected by the School's research and academic departments, then evaluated by a jury organized by the Career Center's internship department. The jury is composed of representatives from the teaching department, faculty members who coordinate internships in each department, a representative from the École Polytechnique Foundation, and a representative from the École Polytechnique Alumni Association (AX).

Some of École Polytechnique's endowed chairs also award prizes for internships related to their chair. 

These prizes reward outstanding internships completed at the first-year master's level: for École Polytechnique engineering students, this is their research internship completed at the end of their third year of engineering studies, and for students in the Master's programs at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, for which École Polytechnique is the reference institution, and the Masters of Science & Technology (MSc&T) programs at École Polytechnique, this is their M1 internship. Internship lengths can vary between three and five months.

These internships are a highlight of their academic career. Some take place in a public research organization (laboratory, CNRS, Inserm, etc.), others in the R&D center of a public or private company, in France or abroad, or in public organizations. The internship results in a written report and an oral defense.

The research internship is an introduction to scientific research methods, focused on solving an original and new problem to which the scientific approach can be applied.

This internship gives students the opportunity to put their scientific knowledge into practice, learn a scientific approach through extended research work, and integrate into a work team. This professional experience also allows students to discover the sector in which they specialize. They are supervised by a mentor at their internship location, as well as by a faculty advisor from École Polytechnique, who provides scientific and practical advice.

Research internships are organized by the School's Career Center, which centralizes internship offers and assists students with the application process and administrative tasks (agreements, etc.). Students receive support from the Career Center throughout their studies, particularly during the career day preceding the Forum de l'X.

Nine Grand Prix research internships were awarded in biology (Marie Girault, X2022), chemistry (Bérénice Baltzinger, X2022), economics (Aditya Srivastava, Master 1 IP Paris), humanities & social sciences (Juliette Beaucousin, X2022), computer science (Thomas Sauvage, X2022), mathematics (Antoine Merceron, X2022), applied mathematics (Arthur Compoint, X2022), mechanics (Maël Antunes, X2022), and physics (Robin Ostertag, X2022). 

Each of these recipients presented the research work they had carried out during their internship in a 180-second presentation before receiving their award, and had created a poster summarizing the main points.

Henri Cheuvreux, a student in the MSc&T Visual and Creative Artificial Intelligence program, was awarded the École Polytechnique Foundation Prize for his internship report on neutral graph networks for applications in the semiconductor field, attached to the Computer Science Department. 

Ruikai Chen received the AX Prize for his internship on the synthesis of linear and nonlinear dynamic textures with stochastic PDEs, carried out within the Department of Applied Mathematics.

Three Research Center Awards were given to the best internships completed in the School's 23 laboratories. They were awarded to two École Polytechnique students in the IP Paris Master's program: Sena Kimura for her research internship in molecular chemistry and Saleh Shamloo Ahmadi for his research internship in physics. The third prize was awarded to cycle ingénieur polytechnicien program student Luc Boudier for his internship at the École Polytechnique Computer Science Laboratory (LIX*).

Seven Chair Awards were presented to Anna Masset (X2022 – Chair in Space Science and Challenges), Côme Vincent (Master 1 IP Paris – Chair in Complex Systems Architecture), Léa Girard (X2022 – Chair in Sustainable Energy – Sylvain David Award), Tanguy de Miscault (X2022 – Sustainable Energy Chair), Alexandre Duhard (X2022 – Saint Gobain Chair), Noémie Cerrina (X2022 – SNCF Chair), and Ethan Cohen (X2022 – Mathematical Modeling and Biodiversity Chair).

Twenty-nine internship awards were presented by the School's Academic and Research Departments: two in biology (Romane Godat - X2022 and Nicolas Dugave - X2022), one in chemistry (Muhammad Ahsan Nasir – Master 1 IP Paris), three in economics (Salma El Aazdoudi – MSc&T Data & Economics for Public Policy, Peirong Shi – MSc&T Economics for Smart Cities and Climate Policy, Aleksandra Zachorowska – Master 1 IP Paris), three in humanities & social sciences (Corentin Lucas, Anthony Ozanne and Eliott Spratt, all three X2022), five in computer science (Alfonso Mateos-Vincente – MSc&T Visual and Creative Artificial Intelligence, Zakaria Abboud – X2022, Axel Delaval – X2022, Natan Doubez – X2022 and Paul Alexis Rodriguez – Master 1 IP Paris), five in applied mathematics (Abderrahim Bendahi, Julien Damidaux, Faustine Delahousse, Adrien Fradin and Yasser Alghouass, all X2022), one in mathematics (Domitille Saliou – X2022), four in mechanics (Marie Bellier, Guillaume Delamare, Solal Espic, and Léa Rozenberg, all four X2022), one in innovation management and entrepreneurship (Marilie Gres – X2022), and four in physics (Gabriel Legrand, Paul-Alexis Mor, and Cédric Holocher, all three X2022, as well as Alper Tezcan – Master 1 IP Paris).

Eighty students were congratulated for their research internships. 

Four cycle ingénieur polytechnicien students from the École Polytechnique had already been awarded prizes by the French Academy of Sciences for their research internships and received their awards at a ceremony held on November 25, 2025, at the Academy. Matéo Pirio-Rossignol was awarded for being X2022 class valedictorian, Marin Debidour in Life and Material Sciences, Quentin Euler in Physical Sciences and Sciences of the Universe, Tahriny Haytham in Mathematical and Economic Sciences, and Emilie Liaud in Mechanical and Computer Sciences.