Catherine RIVIERE is Chief Executive Officer of GENCI (Grand Equipement National de Calcul Intensif) since its creation in early 2007. GENCI is an organization which aims to coordinate the national academic high performance computing facilities by providing for their financing and assuming their ownership. It also promotes the use of modelling, simulation and high performance computing in fundamental and industrial research. It works very closely with its partners, the Ministry for Higher Education and Research, CEA, CNRS, the French Universities and INRIA. Furthermore, GENCI is the French representative in the PRACE project (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) which aims to create a pan-European and highly competitive supercomputer research infrastructure.
Previously, from 1983 to 2006, Catherine RIVIERE worked in the French Institute of Petroleum (IFP) located at Rueil-Malmaison. In 1996, she was appointed as Deputy Manager of the Exploration Production Business Unit. In 2001, she became CEO of Tech’Advantage, a service company and a subsidiary of IFP. In 1983, she graduated from ENSIMAG (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Informatique et de Mathématiques Appliquées of Grenoble) and has now a 26-year working experience in information technology. She received the medal of “Chevalier of the Legion of Honour”.