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

Florèn Hugon, 28, creator of BioDivAct 

“I discovered a beautiful region and a human-sized university.”

Florèn Hugon discovered Southwest France during her final-year internship. In 2018, captivated by the region's charm, and with a Master’s 2 degree in Ecology, Evolution, and Genomics in hand, she applied for a PhD position at the Laboratory of Mathematics and its applications on the UPPA campus in Anglet. Four years later, the young biostatistician created BioDivAct.

In 2018, you entered the Doctoral school for exact sciences and their applications at the UPPA. Can you tell us what brought you here? 

My initial idea was to become a vet. After my Baccalaureate, I did a year’s foundation degree in Grenoble, followed by a Bachelor’s in the Biology of organisms and populations in Lyon, which would enable me to sit the entry exam. It was a decisive step! I discovered mathematics applied to biology. I then naturally continued this curriculum up until the Master’s in Ecology, Evolution, and Genomics proposed by the University of Lyon. I didn’t know exactly what job I would end up in, but I loved what I was studying. 

In Master’s 2, I’d mentioned to one of my teachers that I'd love to do my internship on marine wildlife. He directed me to the Ecobiop laboratory in the Basque Country at Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle, which studies the behaviour of fish. I was selected after sending in a speculative application. For six months, I worked on modelling Atlantic salmon metapopulations. This internship made me want to go into research, which is why I applied for a thesis supervised by Franck d’Amico and Benoît Liquet on the Anglet campus.

Why this thesis in particular? 

Of course, I applied to several, I was particularly interested in the one at the UPPA because it was financed by a regional program, Les Sentinelles du Climat (The climate sentries), and it consisted in applied research with plenty of interactions with the local biodiversity players (Conservatoire Botanique, Conservatoire des Espaces Naturels, Parc National des Pyrénées, etc.). For three years, I studied the effects of temperature variability on the distribution of three species of lizards. I collected body temperature data to calculate the periods of activity of these species and model it according to the air temperature variability. I was lucky to have two thesis supervisors with complementary skills, one an ecologist, the other a statistician. This course also gave me the opportunity to study on the Montuary campus of the UPPA in Anglet, a verdant, human-sized site. 

After your thesis, you created BioDivAct. Why did you decide on entrepreneurship? 

I obtained my PhD in 2021. I wanted to stay in the region but there were very few offers for a biostatistician. During my thesis, I’d identified a lack of continuity between research and the regional players, so I knew there was a gap to fill. My supervisors had left me a lot of freedom in my organisation, so the idea of starting my own business had been growing for three years. Finally, in my last days at the doctoral school, when I presented my professional goals, I was told “you need to create new professions”.  Again, advised by my thesis supervisors, I attended webinars, took part in workshops and conferences, and I was noticed for my competencies. I created BioDiv Act in July 2022. The services on offer range from the implementation of protocols to the popularisation of research, not forgetting the statistical analysis of data. At the moment, I'm working with the French Herpetological Society on trend models applied to amphibian and reptile populations and with the French Biodiversity Agency on marine mammal distribution models. 

What words do you spontaneously associate with the UPPA? 

Human and kindly.

This is the first thing I felt when I arrived in this region; people were ready to listen, approachable and open-minded.

What advice would you give to a future UPPA student?

Don't think twice! You’ll discover a really nice campus, small classes with approachable teachers who get involved for their students. That little extra je ne sais quoi? A beautiful region that speaks for itself! 

→www.biodivact.fr

→https://www.linkedin.com/company/biodivact/