Marcel Berger is Ancien Professeur of the University of Paris and emeritus director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), from 1979 to 1981 he was president of the French Mathematical Society and from 1985 to 1994 director of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) in Bures-sur-Yvette.