I grew up in the suburbs of Paris, France, and studied molecular biology at the Pierre and Marie Curie university. I did my thesis research at the Institut Curie, in the lab of Arturo Londono, where I studied the replication of telomeres. I then joined Anabelle Decottignies in Brussels, Belgium, to work on TERRA, the non-coding RNA that is expressed at telomeres. After two years enjoying the finest chocolates and the world-best ales, I moved to sunny California. I joined the Karlseder lab at the Salk Institute, where I used telomeres to study the regulation of double strand breaks repair. I joined MCDB in August 2018 to open my reseacrh group focusing on Double strand break repair, genome stability and telomere biology. I am delighted to exchange my surfboard for a pair of skis.