Marc Pélegrin, former Director of SupAéro and ONERA-CERT
He has helped to make Toulouse the European capital of aeronautics and space. More specifically, Professor Marc Pélegrin’s innovative vision has kept SupAéro at the forefront of higher education in aeronautics and space. He was responsible for the school’s successful move from Paris to Toulouse and for the creation of the ONERA-CERT centre on the same site. In this way, he revolutionised engineering training by merging training and research activities on the same campus.
As a scientist, Marc Pélegrin has also made a major contribution to research in the aeronautics and space sectors. A former student of Polytechnique and SupAéro (then located in Paris), he first taught at SupAéro, in the field of servo-controls and calculating machines. The research he initiated developed over the decades, opening up a wide range of perspectives.
It was in 1964 that he was asked to lead the transfer of SupAéro to Toulouse, against a backdrop of decentralisation. Although there was little enthusiasm for the project, Marc Pélegrin immediately set himself up as a visionary, seeing in his mission “the possibility of achieving what had struck me so much in the USA”, at MIT, where he had completed his studies: combining training and research. “At that institute, research and teaching were completely intertwined, and students often took part in research work”. As a result, he was able to convince the government to create a study and research centre in symbiosis with the school, under the authority of a joint director.
"I saw in this mission the possibility of realising what had struck me so much in the USA, when in 1945-50 I had the chance to complete my studies at MIT. At that institute, research and teaching were completely intertwined, and students often took part in research work.
Marc Pélegrin Former Director of SupAéro and ONERA-CERTIn terms of training, Marc Pélegrin has also seen things through: while SupAéro’s classes numbered barely 100 students, the school has three 200-seat lecture theatres, student residences, remarkable sports facilities and a Nord 262 aircraft for in-flight practical work. What’s more, the complementary relationship between CERT and SupAéro quickly made the school a pioneer among engineering schools: in 1974, SupAéro was one of the first to be accredited to award doctoral degrees in engineering.
Marc Pélegrin was joint director of the two institutions from 1968 to 1978, and then of ONERA-CERT until 1988. Over the years, SupAéro has trained hundreds of engineers who have gone on to contribute to the extraordinary success of the French aerospace industry. CERT also made a significant contribution, in particular through the pioneering work carried out in Marc Pélegrin’s scientific field of automatic control.
A centenary tribute in 2023, a Marc Pélegrin prize in 2024
On November 28, Marc Pélegrin’s 100th birthday was celebrated on the ISAE-SUPAERO campus in the presence of his family, former students and colleagues. This day, which he was unable to attend due to his state of health, highlighted the richness, importance and variety of the activities that have developed on the basis of his work and which today remain at the forefront of the world, both in the field of training and research, at ISAE-SUPAERO, ONERA and other laboratories.
On this occasion, ISAE-SUPAERO and ONERA announced the creation of a “Marc Pélegrin Prize”, to be awarded from 2024 onwards at international EuroGNC conferences for outstanding scientific contributions in the field of automatic control applied to the aerospace sector.
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