Jean-Paul Penot short biography

Jean-Paul Penot is Emeritus Professor at Pierre and Marie Curie University, after having taught at the University of Pau and Pays de l’Adour. He turned to teaching very early in his career, motivated by the desire not to burden the limited family resources. He studied with great masters such as H. Cartan, C. Chevalley, Y. Choquet-Bruhat, G. Choquet, J.-L. Lions, J. Neveu, L. Schwartz, and was attracted by the theory of global analysis thanks to A. Lichnerowicz. In Pau, he directed his research towards a more applied and concrete direction. However, his work on optimization remained influenced by geometric notions and had links with dynamical systems and topology. He shared these interests with many visitors, students and co-authors. He has written several research articles and two books, “Calculus without derivatives” and “Analysis, from concepts to applications”, published by Springer, in which he shares his passion for mathematics and its usefulness in understanding the often irregular and irregular surrounding world and its amazing and precious transformations.