Valérie Verdier has just been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the IRD by the Council of Ministers on 12 February 2020, on the proposal of Frédérique Vidal, Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, and Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the public establishment's supervisors. She will chair the Institute's Board of Directors and will be responsible for its general management. She succeeds Jean-Paul Moatti, whose term of office came to an end in spring 2019 and who has been acting President of the Institute since then.
Valérie Verdier is a Research Director at the IRD. Until her appointment, she was Director of the Plant Microorganism-Environment Interactions (IPME) Joint Research Unit and was responsible for one of the IRD's five scientific departments: Ecology, Biodiversity and Functioning of Continental Ecosystems (ECOBIO). She thus provided a strategic framework for the Institute's scientific policy, in the interests of sustainable development and an equitable partnership with researchers and research institutions in developing countries.
She is the scientific advisor to the IRD Delegation in Occitanie and is committed to dialogue with the supervisory authorities and all scientific and institutional partners. She represents the IRD on the bodies of the Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB), the Muse I-Site and the International Phytobiome Alliance.
A plant pathologist, Valérie Verdier holds a doctorate in plant science from the University of Paris-Sud (1988) and a Habilitation to direct research (HDR). She studies the interactions between phytopathogenic bacteria and tropical plants, the understanding of which is crucial for food safety. Co-author of over 100 scientific publications, she is internationally recognised for her fundamental contributions to understanding the mechanisms by which bacteria cause diseases, particularly in cassava and rice, and to the approaches developed to control them.
Representing the IRD in Colombia between 1998 and 2000, Valérie Verdier has spent a number of long and short periods abroad during her career. She has conducted research in Central Africa, West Africa, Latin America and the United States. She was an associate researcher at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia between 1995 and 2001, an associate researcher at the University of Los Andes (Colombia) in 2007, a visiting researcher at the School of Global Environmental Sustainability between 2012 and 2013 and an affiliated scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI-BeCA) in Kenya in 2013. An associate expert at the Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l'alimentation, de l'environnement et du travail (Anses, France) between 2015 and 2018, Valérie Verdier has been a research associate at Colorado State University (USA) since 2012. She is the mother of two children.
Valérie Verdier received the Marie Curie Fellowship from the European Commission in 2010 and the International Service Award from the American Phytopathology Society (APS) in 2014. She was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 2016.
Valérie Verdier is a former correspondent for the Young Teams Associated with the IRD (JEAI). She is particularly committed to training young researchers in developing countries, especially women.