Staff

Cécile Münch-Alligné is a Franco-Swiss engineer and researcher specialising in hydraulic energy. Born in 1979 in Strasbourg, she graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure d'Hydraulique et de Mécanique de Grenoble in 2002. She obtained her PhD in fluid mechanics and transfers at INPG in 2005, with a thesis on numerical simulation of large scales of turbulence.

After her PhD, she worked for four years at the Laboratory of Hydraulic Machines of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) as a scientific collaborator, focusing on the numerical simulation of flows in turbomachinery. In 2010, she joined the HES-SO Valais-Wallis as a professor of hydraulic energy. There, she founded and leads the "Hydropower" research group, which is involved in numerous projects at cantonal, national and international levels.

Since July 2021, she has been coordinating the Hydro Alps Lab (HAL), a new centre of excellence in the field of hydropower generation in Valais, the result of a partnership between Alpiq, the Forces Motrices Valaisannes (FMV), HYDRO Exploitation, OIKEN and the HES-SO Valais-Wallis. With the mission of contributing to innovative and sustainable hydropower, the HAL has already made major advances through several applied research (R&D) projects in improving the monitoring and production of high-head and run-of-river alpine facilities, financed by national and European funds.

Since 2019, Cécile Münch-Alligné has also been responsible for the renewable energy orientation of the Energies and Environmental Techniques academic program of the HES-SO.

She is a member of the Federal Commission for Energy Research (CORE), representing the field of hydropower for Switzerland. She is also Vice-Chair of the TCP Hydropower from the IEA and coordinates the activities of the hidden potential of hydropower (Task 16). She is a member of several committees (ETIP, EERA)

In 2019, she was selected to participate in the project 100 Women and Thousands More, which aims to make visible the diversity, and richness of the professional and personal backgrounds of many women, living in Western Switzerland, Ticino and Franche-Comté, with training and careers in (stereo)typically masculine professions.

In 2022, she won the Industry 4.0 The Shapers Award for her work on digitalization in the field of hydropower. This prize highlights personalities from French-speaking Switzerland who contribute to the development of innovation and the prosperity of Swiss industry.

In 2023, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the HES-SO, the HES-SO Prize was awarded to Cécile Münch-Alligné, for her research that has led to important advances in the field of energy transition and her commitment to the transmission of knowledge to the new generation.

Industries

• Hydraulic Machinery
• Large and small hydraulics

Skills

• Numerical fluid modeling and simulation
• Design and optimization of hydraulic turbines
• Estimation of potentials
• Turbulence
• Fluid-structure interaction
  
  

Main projets completed and in progress

Main publications