Olivier Fouché-Grobla is professor at Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (Le Cnam) and research associate at the LEESU - Ecole des Ponts.  During and after his PhD in Engineering Geology (2000), he has developed an expertise in the field of geometry and hydraulics within those heterogeneous media in the structure of which lies some discontinuity network, typically rock masses.

Through work this field, he has dealt with applications as wide as nuclear waste storage, petroleum exploration, and civil engineering.  His present activity consists to adapt his tools and methods to another type of heterogeneous media, the urban soils and underground space, for engineering applications known as “alternative decentralised solutions” mainly in energy and soil and water management.  Thus, he has coordinated the national project ANCRES on the soil services in on-site sanitation, first of all the evacuating of household treated wastewater through the soil, focusing especially on the pedotransfer functions in soils with high rock fragment content.  Currently he is developing a national project on geothermal exchange in tunnels for energy supply in overhead buildings.