Congratulations to Bayane Michotte de Welle, winner of the 2025 René Pellat Prize

Bayane Michotte de Welle, who completed her PhD at LPP, has been awarded the 2025 René Pellat Prize, a PhD thesis prize granted by the Plasmas Division of the French Physical Society.

Her thesis, entitled “Statistical study of the global constraints governing magnetic reconnection at the Earth’s magnetopause”, focuses on the mechanisms controlling magnetic reconnection at the boundary between the solar wind and the Earth’s magnetosphere. In particular, she investigated the location of the so-called “X-line”, the region where reconnection preferentially occurs, depending on the orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field.

To address this question, Bayane Michotte de Welle developed an original approach combining space observations, statistical analysis and machine learning methods. She used more than twenty years of in situ multipoint measurements from four space missions (Cluster, Double Star, THEMIS and MMS) to extract the global conditions at the magnetopause that favour magnetic reconnection. For more details, please read our January 2026 news item by clicking here.

This work has helped bridge the gap between local measurements performed by satellites and the global description provided by magnetospheric models. It provides new results on several key parameters, such as the draping and intensity of the interplanetary magnetic field, plasma density, magnetic shear and the maximum reconnection rate.

The originality of this approach, based directly on observational constraints, opens up new perspectives for the analysis of future swarm-based space missions. The quality of the manuscript, four first-author publications and numerous international presentations all highlight the significance of this contribution.

All members of LPP warmly congratulate Bayane Michotte de Welle on this well-deserved distinction.

Click here to access the official page of the French Physical Society for more information.