Gilles Schaeffer

Gilles Schaeffer is a Senior Researcher at CNRS and Professor at École Polytechnique, where he served as Director of the Computer Science Laboratory (LIX) from 2019-2025. He leads the Combinatorial Models group within the Combinatorics and Computer Algebra division.

His research spans combinatorial methods including map enumeration, random discrete structures, and compact data representations, with applications in algorithmics, topology, and statistical physics.

He has supervised PhD students on topics ranging from combinatorial maps to mesh compression algorithms. Schaeffer secured an ERC Starting Grant for the ExploreMaps project (2008-2013) and coordinated the GeoComp research initiative.

He serves on editorial boards for Combinatorial Theory, Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré D, and PuMA journals.