Prof. Franck Lavigne

Franck Lavigne is Professor of Physical Geography at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a member of the Laboratoire de Géographie Physique (CNRS). For more than thirty years, his research has focused on natural hazards and low-frequency, high-magnitude events, particularly in Indonesia. Initially specialising in volcanic hazards and lahars at Merapi volcano, he became extensively involved in tsunami research after the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean disaster. Shortly after the event, he conducted field investigations in Banda Aceh and later coordinated the multidisciplinary TSUNARISQUE programme, devoted to tsunami propagation, geomorphological impacts, vulnerability, population behaviour and post-disaster recovery. He has since worked on tsunamis and palaeotsunamis in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and the Mediterranean. In parallel, his research on past volcanic eruptions led to the identification of Samalas volcano in Lombok as the source of the major AD 1257 eruption, published in PNAS in 2013. He has authored or co-authored more than 110 international scientific articles. His current work combines geomorphology, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, historical sources and geoarchaeology to investigate long-term interactions between extreme natural events and societies.