Caroline Alexandra van Eck FBA (born 22 July 1959) is a Dutch art historian and academic, specialising in the art and architecture of the early modern period. Since 2016, she has been Professor of Art History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. She was Professor of Art and Architecture before 1800 at Leiden University from 2006 to 2016, and previously taught at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of Groningen. She was the 2017 Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
In March 2014, van Eck was awarded the 2013 Descartes-Huygens Prize by the French Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques . [6]
In December 2014, van Eck was appointed a Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre National du Mérite by the President of France. [7] She was awarded the Grand Prix du Rayonnement de la Littérature et Culture Françaises by the Académie française in 2015. [8]
In 2020 van Eck was elected a fellow of the Academia Europaea [9] and of the British Academy. [10]
Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor who is regarded as a key figure in the Scientific Revolution. In physics, Huygens made seminal contributions to optics and mechanics, while as an astronomer he studied the rings of Saturn and discovered its largest moon, Titan. As an engineer and inventor, he improved the design of telescopes and invented the pendulum clock, the most accurate timekeeper for almost 300 years. A talented mathematician and physicist, his works contain the first idealization of a physical problem by a set of mathematical parameters, and the first mathematical and mechanistic explanation of an unobservable physical phenomenon.
Frans van Schooten Jr. also rendered as Franciscus van Schooten was a Dutch mathematician who is most known for popularizing the analytic geometry of René Descartes.
Jean Léon Marie Delumeau was a French historian specializing in the history of the Catholic Church, and author of several books regarding the subject. He held the Chair of the History of Religious Mentalities (1975–1994) at the Collège de France and was a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres.
Jacqueline Worms de Romilly was a French philologist, classical scholar and fiction writer. She was the first woman nominated to the Collège de France, and in 1988, the second woman to enter the Académie française.
Sami Erol Gelenbe, a Turkish and French computer scientist, electronic engineer and applied mathematician, pioneered the field of Computer System and Network Performance. Currently Professor in the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, he is also a visiting professor at King's College London, Honorary Researcher in the I3S Laboratory, and the Abraham de Moivre Laboratory. Fellow of several National Academies, he Chairs the Informatics Section of Academia Europaea since 2023. His previous Professorial Chairs include the University of Liège (1974-1979), University Paris-Saclay (1979-1986), University Paris Descartes (1986-2005), NJIT (1991–93), ECE Chair at Duke University (1993-1998), University Chair Professor and Director of EECS, University of Central Florida (1998-2003), and Dennis Gabor Professor and Head of Intelligent Systems and Networks, Imperial College (2003-2019).
Catherine Jeanne Cesarsky is an Argentine and French astronomer, known for her research activities in astrophysics and for her leadership in astronomy and atomic energy. She is the current chairperson of the Square Kilometre Array's governing body, SKAO Council. She was the first female president of the International Astronomical Union (2006-2009) and the first female director general of the European Southern Observatory (1999-2007).
Izak (Ieke) Moerdijk is a Dutch mathematician, currently working at Utrecht University, who in 2012 won the Spinoza prize.
Barbara Wright, Emerita Professor of French at Trinity College, Dublin, was an Irish translator, notably of Eugène Fromentin, Charles Baudelaire and Gustave Moreau, as well as other nineteenth-century French writers, philosophers and artists.
The Ordre national du Mérite is a French order of merit with membership awarded by the President of the French Republic, founded on 3 December 1963 by President Charles de Gaulle. The reason for the order's establishment was twofold: to replace the large number of ministerial orders previously awarded by the ministries; and to create an award that can be awarded at a lower level than the Legion of Honour, which is generally reserved for French citizens. It comprises about 185,000 members; 306,000 members have been admitted or promoted in 50 years.
Charles-Édouard Levillain, FRHistS, MAE, is a French historian of early modern Britain and the Low Countries. He is currently professor of British history at Université Paris Cité.
Terence Christopher Cave is a British literary scholar.
Marie Claire Odile Villeval is a French economist and research professor in economics at the National Center for Scientific Research.
Alain Bensoussan, born on 12 May 1940 in Tunis, is a French mathematician. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Paris-Dauphine and Professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Michel Pouchard is a French chemist specialising in the physico-chemistry of inorganic solids.
Philippe Kourilsky, born on 22 July 1942 in Boulogne-Billancourt, is a French biologist, a member of the French Academy of sciences and an honorary professor at the Collège de France.
Michel Caboche , was a French biologist, director of research at Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA), member of the French Academy of Sciences and of the Scientific Council of the Parliamentary Office for the Assessment of Scientific and Technological Choices (OPECST).
Daniel Rondeau is a French writer, editor, and diplomat. Born in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, he studied law at Panthéon-Assas where the spirit of May 68 saw him embrace Maoism and join the proletariat by working from 1970 to 1974 in a factory in Nancy making insulation. He worked for France Inter's Nord-Est radio station from 1977, before moving to Paris, where he worked for the newspapers Libération (1982–1985) Le Nouvel Observateur (1985–1998) and L'Express (1998–2007). He was French ambassador to Malta (2008–2011) and to UNESCO (2011–2013). He has written fiction, reportage, literary criticism and political commentary, and for his oeuvre won the Grand prix de littérature Paul-Morand in 1998. After unsuccessfully standing for election to the Académie Française in 2011 and 2016, he was elected to seat 8 in 2019.
The Descartes-Huygens Prize is an yearly scientific prize created in 1995 by the French and the Dutch governments, and attributed to two scientists of international level, a French one chosen by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen and a Dutch one chosen by the Académie des sciences, to reward their work and their contributions to the French-Dutch cooperation.
Michel Laurencin was a French academic and historian who specialized in the history of Touraine.
Sylvie Vauclair is a French astrophysicist, and professor emeritus, where she taught for more than 30 years. She also taught for a decade at the Paris Diderot University. She has served as president of the Société Française d'Astronomie et d'Astrophysique.