Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne      Institut Universitaire de France Directeur de Cybergeo, European Journal of Geography       Directeur, GDRE S4 13 rue du Four, 75 006 Paris France pumain <at> parisgeo.cnrs.fr

Prof. Denise Pumain

Short biography

Geographer, specialist in urban spaces, Denise Pumain has Degrees from the “École normale supérieure” de Fontenay-aux-Roses.

She has been assistant professor at the University of Paris I from 1970 to 1981. From 1981 to 1985, she worked as a researcher at INED National Institute of Demographic Studies and from 1986 to 1989 she has been professor at the University of Paris XIII.

Denise Pumain is Professor at University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and Director of Cybergeo, European Journal of Geography (www.cybergeo.eu). Former Chair of the Commission on Urban Development and Urban Life of the International Geographical Union (1992-2000), founder (1984) and Director (1992-2000) of the research laboratory P.A.R.I.S. (UMR Géographie-cités, CNRS), since 2006 director of the European Research Group S4 (Spatial Simulation for Social Sciences, www.S4.parisgeo.cnrs.fr), she is specialised in urban modelling and theoretical geography.

Her main scientific contribution is about building an evolutionary theory of urban systems and transferring concepts and models from self-organising complex systems towards social sciences.

Her last book “Hierarchy in natural and social sciences” is published by Springer in 2006 in the Methodos Series.

She is director of the series “Villes” published by Anthropos.