Frank Merle was born on 22 November 1962 in
Marseille. After graduation from the
École Normale Supérieure (ENS), Merle received in 1987 his Ph.D. from the
University of Paris VI under
Henri Berestycki with thesis ''Contributions a l'etude de certaines equations aux derivees partielles non lineaires de la physique mathematique''. He became a researcher for
CNRS at ENS. In 1989/90 he was an assistant professor at the
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU. Since 1991 Merle has been a professor at the
University of Cergy-Pontoise. From 1998 to 2003 he was a member of the
Institut Universitaire de France. In the fall of 1996, the fall of 2001, and the academic year 2003–2004 he was a visiting scholar at the
Institute for Advanced Study. He was a visiting professor at
Stanford University,
Rutgers University, the
University of Chicago, the
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) at Berkeley,
Leiden University, and the
University of Tokyo. Frank Merle holds the Analysis Chair at the
Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Bures-sur-Yvette . ==Mathematical research==