Emilien AZÉMA is Full Professor at the University of Montpellier since 2023, in the Departement of Mechanical Engineering (Faculty of Sciences) and in the Mechanical & Civil Engineering Lab (LMGC). He is holding a Research Chair from the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) as a Junior member (2020-2025). He is appointed as « Professeur Associé » at Polytechnique Montreal in the « Genie Civil, Géologique et Mine » Department since 2024. He earned both his Master and PhD from the University of Montpellier, where he studied the rheological and micromechanical behavior of railway ballast grains using realistic Discrete Element Modeling, via a joint grant from the CNRS and the Société Française des Chemins de Fers (SNCF). Between 2015-2016, he was a visiting researcher at the Mechanical Engineering Department at University of Chiangmai (Thailand). In 2008, he was a visiting researcher at the Civil Engineering Department at Los Andes University (Colombia). Prior to join the University of Montpellier as Ass. Professor in 2008, he spent one year at the Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussée (LCPC, now IFSTTAR) as a researcher. He works on the micro-mechanics of granular systems composed of realistic microstructure. By means of innovative Discrete Element Modeling (DEM), he’s pioneering work was to systematically illuminate the non-linear effects of particle shapes (angularity, non convexity, elongation and platyness) and particle size polydispersity (size span and shape of particle size distribution) on the quasi-static to rapid flow rheology. In more general terms, he focus on evolving granular systems in which particles can fragment or undergo large deformations (soft/squishy granular materials) with applications to geomaterials, powder, rocks as well as non-terrestrial granular systems.  Since 2018, he is the coordinator of international affairs at the Faculty of Sciences. Since 2021, he is the coordinator of the first year Master’s degree in mechanical engineering. He teach solid mechanics, numerical computation, finite element method, discrete approaches and rheology of granular media in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Faculty of Science.