Infos soutenance (mercredi 15 octobre 2025)

About me

I am a PhD Candidate at MSC laboratory (Université Paris Cité | CNRS) under the supervision of Prof. Adrian Daerr.

My academic background spans fluid dynamics, soft matter, and classical mechanics, but I also have an advanced training in several other domains, including statistical physics, chemistry and optics.

I am particularly interested in nonlinear physics (pattern formation, dynamical systems, instabilities, chaos) and fluid mechanics. My PhD work is primarily experimental, but I enjoy developing simple theoretical models that capture the essential physics of the systems I study.

Here is a CV.

Research interests

I am very curious and I like investigating new and intriguing phenomena in hydrodynamics, mechanics and biophysics.

My PhD work focuses on the understanding on the nonlinear dynamics of a liquid rivulet in a Hele-Shaw cell.

Before and during my PhD, I worked on several other projects, such as the curious levitation of a rotating magnet, migration models of cells in biophysics, or the chaotic behavior of a waterwheel.

See a nice video on Youtube : youtube.com/shorts/ORSPYyi6tTo

Academic formation

2022 - 2025 — PhD in physics Nonlinear Dynamics of a Liquid Rivulet in a Hele-Shaw Cell

2022 — Admission to Agrégation de Physique : High-level competitive examination for future physics teachers in France (rank: 2/459)

2021 — Master’s degree, Applied and THeoretical Mathematics (MATH), with specialization in mathematical modeling and macroscopic physics

2017 - 2022 — Physics at Ecole Normale Supérieure (Bachelor in Physics and M1 ICFP), Paris

2017 — Admission to École Normale Supérieure, via competitive exam (rank: 10/390)

Publications

Grégoire Le Lay & Adrian Daerr,
Dancing rivulets in an air-filled Hele-Shaw cell,
Under review at J. Fluid Mech.

Grégoire Le Lay & Adrian Daerr,
Controlling and characterizing thin films with high resolution,
[Featured Article] Physics of Fluids, 37, 062101 (2025) | 10.1063/5.0268672 | PDF

Grégoire Le Lay & Adrian Daerr,
Phase-locking parametric instability coupling longitudinal and transverse waves,
Physical Review Letters, 134, 014001 (2025) | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.014001 | PDF
Press item (U. Paris Cité news) | Press item (MSC lab news)

Grégoire Le Lay, Sarah Layani, Adrian Daerr, et al.,
Magnetic levitation in the field of a rotating dipole,
[Editor’s suggestion] Physical Review E, 110, 045003 (2024) | 10.1103/PhysRevE.110.045003 | PDF
Press item (CNRS news) | Press item (MSC lab news)

Tania Gajardo, Mathilde Bernard, Marie Lô, et al.,
Actin dynamics regulation by TTC7A/PI4KIIIα limits DNA damage and cell death,
Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 152, 4 (2023) | 10.1016/j.jaci.2023.06.016

Antoine Gaillard, Jack S. Keeler, Grégoire Le Lay, et al.,
Life and fate of a bubble in a geometrically perturbed Hele-Shaw channel,
Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 914, A34 (2021) | 10.1017/jfm.2020.844 | PDF

Sundary Sormendi, Mathieu Deygas, Anupam Sinha, et al.,
HIF2α is a direct regulator of neutrophil motility,
Blood, 137, 24 (2021) | 10.1182/blood.2020007505

Teaching

Waves, Electromagnetism

I gave short courses on waves and on electromagnetism for the Préparation à l’agrégation interne of Université Paris Cité.

Laser

I gave tutorials on lasers to students for the 2A Génie Physique at EIDD.

International Physicist’s Tournament

I participated in the training of Université Paris Cité’s team for the french selection of the International Physicists’ Tournament.

IPhO

From 2022 to 2025, I was a member of the scientific committee of selection and training of the French team competing at the International Physics Olympiads.

Outreach

Chaotic waterwheel

I devised a small and portable chaotic waterwheel (Malkus–Lorenz like) to explain dynamical systems and chaos to the general public. Learn more…

Projects

PyPendentDrop

Open-source Python API (shipped with graphical and command line interfaces) to measure surface tension from images of pendent drops.

• Package on PyPI
• Documentation on ReadTheDocs
• Source code on GitHub

Limrendir

Limrendir is a free software that allows for viewing and saving video streams from Genicam compatible cameras using the Aravis library. It is a mashup between Aravis Viewer, which allows for user-friendly interactions with a camera including control and stream visualisation, and gevCapture, which allows for user-unfriendly recording of said stream.
It is coded in C using GTK3. The code is hosted on Github.

Tracktor

Tracktor is a statistical analysis software. It is able to compute many statistical metrics for large tracking datasets and compare the data to existing models. It renders the results in the form of publication-ready figures.
It is coded in C++ using Qt5, and Python.