[UPPA ALUMNI profiles] Florèn Hugon, 28, creator of BioDivAct

Florèn Hugon discovered the South-West during her final-year internship. In 2018, charmed by the region and holding a Master’s degree in Ecology, Evolution, and Genomics, she applied for a PhD at the Laboratory of Mathematics and their Applications, on UPPA’s Anglet campus. Four years later, the young biostatistician founded BioDivAct.

In 2018, you joined UPPA’s Doctoral School of Exact Sciences and Applications. What was your path up to that point?

At first, I wanted to become a veterinarian. After high school, I did a year of preparatory studies in Grenoble, then a Bachelor’s degree in Organism and Population Biology in Lyon, which gave access to the competitive exam. That stage was decisive! I discovered mathematics applied to biology. From there, it was only natural for me to pursue this path up to the Master’s in Ecology, Evolution, and Genomics offered by the University of Lyon. I didn’t really know what career I would pursue, but I loved what I was studying.

During my second year of the Master’s, I had mentioned to a professor my wish to do my internship on marine wildlife. He directed me to the ECOBIOP laboratory in the Basque Country, in Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle, which studies fish behavior. I was accepted after a spontaneous application. For six months, I worked on modeling the Atlantic salmon in metapopulation. This experience made me want to do research, which led to my PhD application under the supervision of Franck d’Amico and Benoît Liquet on the Anglet campus.

Why this PhD in particular?

Of course, I applied to several PhDs. The one at UPPA particularly appealed to me because it was funded by a regional program, *Les Sentinelles du Climat*, and because it was applied research, with many interactions with local biodiversity stakeholders (Botanical Conservatory, Conservatory of Natural Areas, Pyrenees National Park…). For three years, I studied the impact of temperature variability on the distribution of three lizard species. I collected body temperature data to calculate the activity time of these species and modeled it in relation to air temperature variability. I was lucky to have two thesis supervisors with complementary expertise, one an ecologist, the other a statistician. This journey was also an opportunity to study at UPPA’s Montaury campus in Anglet, a green and human-sized setting.

After your PhD, you created BioDivAct. Why did you choose entrepreneurship?

I obtained my PhD in 2021. I wanted to stay in the region, but there were few opportunities for a biostatistician. During my PhD, I had identified a gap between research and local stakeholders (associations, managers, …), and I knew there was a role to play. My supervisors had given me great freedom in organizing my work, so a small seed of entrepreneurship had been planted over those three years. Finally, at the last days of the doctoral school, when I presented my career plans, people told me: ‘we need to create new professions.’ Still advised by my PhD supervisors, I attended webinars, workshops, and conferences, and my skills started to get noticed. I created BioDivAct in July 2022. My services range from defining the biological question to scientific outreach of the results, including of course selecting an appropriate protocol and carrying out statistical data analysis, my core expertise; I also offer training in biostatistics. I regularly work with the French Herpetological Society on population trend models and with the Conservatory of Natural Areas of Nouvelle-Aquitaine on several aspects (protocol development and evaluation, training, analyses). I have also collaborated with the French Office for Biodiversity, the National Forestry Office, the Bird Protection League, and other smaller nature conservation associations.

What words do you spontaneously associate with UPPA?

Human and caring.
That’s what I felt first in this region: people who are attentive, approachable, and open.

What advice would you give to a young student starting out at UPPA?

Don’t hesitate! You’ll discover a welcoming campus, small class sizes with accessible and committed teachers.

BioDivAct  LinkedIn

Interview by Florence Elman