ICHEC Director receives top French Honour

One of France’s highest honours, the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques (Knight of the Order of Academic) has been awarded to Professor Jean Christophe (JC) Desplat, Director of ICHEC.

The Ordre des Palmes Académiques is a prize given by the French government to honour distinguished figures in culture and education. Originally started by Napoleon, the award assumed its current form in 1955, and at a ceremony this week at Résidence de France in Dublin, ICHEC’s Professor Desplat joined the distinguished list of recipients.

Speaking at the ceremony, Professor Desplat said:

I am honoured today to become member of an Order which gathers so many distinguished personalities such as the writer Marcel Pagnol (who described the importance of this award to his father as well as the deep respect he had for this award), the singer Charles Trenet, le mime Marceau as well as well-known figures of the French resistance such as Lucie Aubrac.

Professor Desplat has been an integral part of ICHEC since 2005, becoming Director in 2012. His expertise has proven crucial in establishing ICHEC as one of the leading technology centres in Europe.

Commenting on the importance of the award personally and professionally, JC explained: 

This award means a lot to me personally but it also rightly recognises the outstanding team of people I work with at the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) where our goal is to make Ireland a world leader in high-performance computing. Core to our values is a drive to share our passion, enthusiasm and knowledge to those around us. This, to me, bears striking resemblance with the ideals of the Palmes Academiques.

ICHEC is Ireland’s national centre for high-performance computing, with world-class expertise in the exploitation of next generation compute platforms. The Center operates the national High-Performance Computing service for academia and through industrial R&D collaboration helps bring the benefits of high-performance computing to business and industry. 

 ICHEC is partly funded by the Irish State through the Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation and the Department of Education & Skills. It is hosted by NUI Galway, with offices in Dublin and Galway.