PORTRAIT. Physicist at The Cnes, Champion of parachute speakers and diving record woman: The extraordinary course of Toulouse Gaëlle Giesen

“I don’t know exactly when it started, but from my 14th birthday I was sure I wanted to work in space,” recalls Gaëlle Giesen. Astrophysics Engineer, former parachutist champion and diving record woman, her résumé, is breathtaking. “I like to go to the limit of what people can do in all areas,” she explains.

However, she did not really contest his entourage to develop in this environment: her mother is a nurse and her father professor of political science. “My parents think it is a visit to the city of space when I was a child,” she smiles. Gaëlle Giesen first follows the physics studies in Lausanne in Switzerland, where she was born before moving to France in 2012 to take her thesis at the university Paris-Saclay.

Cooperation with NASA

“After that I wanted to do a job in the more application, it specifies. Working on the implementation of a mission, not in your interpretation.” It therefore holds an engineering position and joined it CNES In Toulouse in 2017, she is working on two separate missions today. “Dragon-fly” the NASAwho aims to explore the biochemistry and the composition of the Titan floors, Lune de Saturn. And “Ariel”of theEuropean space agencyThe aim of which is to examine the atmospheres of exoplanets.

What Gaëlle Giesen beats is also her ability to make your work popular, so very spicy, and to talk about it in a very clear way. And beyond her job, she is also characterized by her passions. At 19, she started two extreme sports: parachutists and diving. The first quickly takes up a large place in his life.

International parachutist, world record when diving

In 2012 she joined a team to make small competitions. Then she was selected for the French Hope team in 2015 and in 2018 in the French team. As a team, she was Vice-World Champion three times.

It decides to move away from this sport in 2022 in order to devote more to diving. “I have progressed slower, I was a little frustrated,” she says. Always in sight, the search for exploration.

“Too few women in the world”

Last October, when she dived 222 meters in front of Cassis, she broke the female world record in the open sea in the Mediterranean.

Lack of representation is also very present in his job. “I would like to communicate across all of my activities to show that it is possible for everyone and especially from a young age. When I was a child, I would never have imagined to achieve all of this.” Gaëlle Giesen worked with the children’s magazine Manonto talk about his job and dive.

His secret to manage everything? “You have to organize yourself well,” she says. And since she doesn’t really know how to stop, she has a license in biology, biochemistry and microbiology onPaul-Sabatier University. “It enables me to understand the needs of scientists in detail,” she said always ready to found a new project.

“I would like to combine physics and my diving practice: to create statistics, to examine decompression protocols and to optimize the security warehouses. I also plan to repeat a dive 200 meters, but this time explore a wreck.” No future very specific challenge, but “many things I want to do,” she concludes.