Kristel Chanard receives the CNRS Bronze Medal
Kristel Chanard, a geophysicist at IGN within the geodesy team of IPGP, has been awarded the 2024 CNRS Bronze Medal. This medal recognizes the initial work of researchers specializing in their field and serves as an encouragement from CNRS to continue their promising and already fruitful research.
As a research scientist at IGN and a member of the Geodesy team at IPGP, Kristel Chanard’s work lies at the intersection of geodesy, geophysics, and hydrology. She notably contributes to the development of hydrogeodesy, an emerging discipline aimed at better understanding the evolution of water resources by combining geodetic observations and hydrological process modeling.
To fully exploit the potential of geodesy for studying the hydrological cycle, it is crucial to gain a better understanding of the Earth’s rheological behaviour, on which geodetic measurements depend. Kristel has distinguished herself by using geodetic observations to analyse the response of the solid Earth to variations in hydrological loading. Her aim is to characterise and model rheology coherently across spatial and temporal scales.
She also explores the broader implications of hydrologically induced deformations for the Earth system. In particular, she is interested in the influence of hydrological forcing on earthquakes, which can provide important insights into the physical processes associated with the seismic cycle.
Given that her work heavily relies on observations, Chanard places great importance on improving geodetic data. She is actively involved in data acquisition, developing advanced processing methods, and contributing to the realization of the International Terrestrial Reference System, which underpins geodetic measurements. She also engages at both national and international levels in the evolution of geophysical data networks and the research that benefits from them, notably through her participation in the EarthScope Consortium.
Last year, Kristel Chanard was the recipient of the AGU’s John Wahr Early Career Award, and in 2022, she received the Geodesy Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award from the EGU. These accolades highlight the impact of her work and her ongoing commitment to advancing geodesy and geophysics.
