Laurence Viennot is an emeritus professor at at Denis Diderot University. After five years of research in astrophysics, she moved to didactics of physics in 1971 (thesis in 1977). Since then, she has taught physics and didactics of physics. She has been a member of the national committee in charge of preparing new curricula in physics for secondary schools in France (1990-1995), and a member of the first executive board of the European Science Education Research Association. She founded and headed a master in Didactics of Scientific Disciplines, while teaching physics in the physics department. Her professional interest is in the quality of the teaching learning process, and has led her into research on common ways of reasoning in physics, design and evaluation of sequences and teachers’ response to innovative interventions (Reasoning in Physics: Kluwer 2001; Teaching Physics: Kluwer 2003).

More recently, the links between conceptual understanding, intellectual satisfaction and critical attitude became her main topic of research (En physique Pour comprendre: Grenoble Sciences/EDP Sciences, 2011; Thinking in physics The pleasure of reasoning and understanding: Springer 2014).

Laurence Viennot was awarded the medal of International Commission of Physics Education in 2003 and the GIREP medal in 2016.