It is with a smile that Mathieu Barthélémy describes his “a bit special” journey. And for good reason, when he passes his aggregation in 1996, he is far from suspecting that he would become director of the CSUG, the Grenoble University Space Centerthen head of the Maison pour la Science Alpes Dauphiné.
“I was first a teacher, and I did my thesis at the same time, which is quite unusual,” he tells us. “At the end of my thesis, I had a job at the university, first as a lecturer, and then I became a professor. That means teacher-researcher, I teach general physics. “.
Mediation with students
It is his desire to be a maker, but above all a knowledge broker that pushed him, about ten years ago, to create the CSUG with colleagues. “It was a great adventure and we worked a lot on it”. This is obvious, as his research focuses on the aurora borealis and space environments, “that is to say, roughly, the conditions in which satellites will find themselves when they are in orbit” , he adds.
The project ended up bearing fruit, since since September 2020, the Center has been able to take advantage of the successful launch of AMICal Sat – its very first nanosatellite – in order to collect data for IPAG, the Institute of Planetology and Grenoble Astrophysics. This feat reminds Mathieu of a misadventure that happened to him when he was about to fly to Brno in the Czech Republic, on the occasion of the integration of the satellite. The latter, no bigger than a carton of milk, was packed in a clean, totally airtight suitcase… “When we were going to go through the security check, they were most likely going to want to open it,” he said to himself. “So we met very early in the morning at the airport, and we started talking to the police who were there. We explained to them that in the suitcase, there was a satellite. And we saw their faces… they were pretty impressed. »
Mediation with teachers
Still involved in his research work, he ended up handing over to Jean-Louis Monin for the direction of the CSUG, during the summer of 2021. He then joined the Maison pour la Science Alpes Dauphiné. “After a while, when you have a managerial responsibility, and I think this is valid in all professions, there is a need to change, to renew things. »
Here he is thus at the head of a structure with still and always pedagogical aims, by training teachers of primary and secondary schools in science, directly in contact with researchers or professionals. “We cover disciplines such as SVT, physics-chemistry, mathematics and technology. “, he told us. He continues: “It’s a success, […] we train between 500 and 600 teachers a year, which is good enough! Afterwards, it’s a system that we would like to develop further, and sometimes everything is not possible because it requires resources that we don’t necessarily have. “.
Mathieu tells us that the demand is real. Indeed, 80% of teachers, particularly in primary school, have never had any real scientific training.
And then …
Attention, Mathieu Barthélémy wants to make it clear that he has not yet finished with the CSUG. Indeed, he was recently part of the team that developed ThingSat, another nanosatellite put into orbit in January 2022. “The idea of this satellite is to look at deforestation areas with a system [d’intelligence artificielle] which automatically detects if what it sees is from the forest or not. This would make it possible to see in real time the evolution of particular areas. “. Case to follow!
Emma and Valentine