Hello Marie-Bernadette. Thank you for being with us on this International Day of Women and Girls in Science. First of all, could you introduce yourself in a few words, and tell us about your background?
Hello, my name is Marie-Bernadette Lepetit. I'm a CNRS research director at the Institut Néel in Grenoble. My work focuses on quantum physics and chemistry, in particular quantum materials and their electronic and magnetic properties. I'm particularly interested in quantum entanglement.
I come from a modest background, in a rural region between the Midi-Pyrénées and Languedoc-Roussillon, in the extreme south of the Massif Central. The nearest town was La Salvetat. My parents had no connection with the academic world: my father was an electrician and my mother didn't work. It was school that gave me my freedom. From the age of 10, I was a boarder, then I lived with an aunt in Albi, who opened up new perspectives for me. In high school, I discovered mathematics, a discipline that fascinated me. In maths, you start from nothing and build a whole world from hypotheses. It's like heroic fantasy: you need logic, rigor, but also a lot of imagination.
After a scientific baccalaureate, I entered the preparatory classes at Fermat high school in Toulouse. This enabled me to enter an engineering school, the École Polytechnique. I hung in there and worked hard. I had to get out. At all costs! My parents' social background often made the difference. As I wasn't particularly well endowed in that respect, I couldn't have got out of the lot without doing the studies I did. The choice of X was not only linked to the excellence of the school, but also to the fact that it allowed me to be paid.
I then did a PhD in quantum chemistry. It lasted about 20 months. In quantum research, you have to wipe the slate clean of all your intuitions, everything you feel, to rebuild a world of pure logic, pure reasoning. My goal was clear: become a researcher to understand the world, model it, and help make it a better place.
And after your PhD?
I passed my thesis on June 10, 1988, and the CNRS competition ten days later. I was accepted and joined in October of the same year, even before leaving for a post-doc in the US. I was a research fellow before becoming research director in 2005. I worked in the quantum physics laboratory in Toulouse. Then I moved to Caen to join the materials laboratory, which was called CRISMAT.
How would you describe your life as a researcher? Is the ideal of the early days still present?
Yes, the ideal is still there. But reality is demanding: in research, you're in international competition and you're constantly questioning yourself. In this profession, you work on subjects you haven't yet mastered, and as soon as you begin to understand them, you often have to move on to something else. In a way, we have to start from the fact that researchers are constantly confronted with their own incompetence. And that's not so easy to live with. It's a job where you're confronted with your limits every day.
The environment can also be difficult, especially for a woman. I've suffered disrespect due to my gender, even quite recently. I had to fight to find a place for myself. Not to mention the fact that women are often asked to pay ten times more than men for the same thing. If you raise your voice, you run the risk of being seen as a harpy, and if you say nothing, you run the risk of being seen as colorless. Coming from a working-class background didn't help matters: you had to learn the social codes and somehow impose yourself without disturbing, in a very masculine world.
As a long-time user of computing centers, what role does GENCI play in your business?
It's simple: computing resources are indispensable. Otherwise, I stop working. I started using computing centers during my thesis, like the CNUSC in Montpellier, the forerunner of CINES. Later, I also used the resources of the center that would later become IDRIS. I've known GENCI since its inception.
Aside from being a user for a very long time, I was a member of a program committee, thematic committee 8 (CT8 - quantum chemistry and molecular modeling) , then became its president before stepping down. However, I didn't want to distance myself from the computing community. That's why I got involved in the IDRIS user community: so that the machines could adapt to scientific needs, and not the other way round. There is always a need for dialogue to adjust resources and needs. GENCI is the forum for this. And it works well. My motivation is to support the communities, which have different needs, and so it's important to have a variety of architectures. This implies a truly interdisciplinary approach, being able to talk to different communities. Computing isn't just about power: it's a partner in scientific thinking.
Do you think there's a crisis in science among young people, and what place do girls and women have in this field?
I feel that science teaching has sometimes lost its magic. We need to re-enchant this discipline by showing how objects fit together and interact. For girls and women, there is no single solution, but encounters and willingness are essential. Giving people the desire seems to me to be a priority.
Many women have this desire to contribute to the collective and make their mark. You have to be ready to fight, with the courage Jaurès spoke of: "Courage is going for the ideal and understanding the real.". That seems to me a good definition of what it means to be a woman of science. To become a woman of science and build worlds, you need imagination, rigor, and will.