Olga Paris-romaskevich

I am a mathematician at CNRS, interested in dynamical systems. I work in the Institut Camille Jordan in Lyon. My latest work concerns tiling billiards and the Novikov's conjecture about plane sections of triply periodic surfaces, inspired by physics of conductivity. My research is currently partially supported by the ANR GALS. This academic year, I am on leave for studies : I am following a Masters program M2 in sociology and gender studies in Lyon 2 University.I tell stories and create artistic performances. I have some experience in filmmaking such as editing, script writing and directing (both theater and cinema). I am the author of a blog about ten Russian women in mathematics МАТЕМАТИКА. With the association Vagabond Mathematics, co-founded in 2020 with Marie Lhuissier, we draw the chalk art with us in the streets of Lyon.I am interested in questioning the way we make a community in mathematics and in science. I am a member of European Mathematical Society Outreach and Engagement Committee and an elected member of the scientific council of the mathematics institute of CNRS, CSI de l'INSMI. I am proud and grateful to be part of scientific council of IMéRA Institute of Advanced Studies in Marseille. I am member (adhérente) of femmes et mathématiques and Société Mathématique de France.
I co-authored the book Matheuses (Mathgirls: girls, future of mathematics).

If you are interested in some of my endeavours (research, outreach and art), subscribe to my newsletter! (which is mostly in French and sporadically in English).

Contact

The picture on the screen is made from a hill on Olkhon island, also called the heart of the lake Baikal. The picture of myself is a picture of a (Polaroid) picture made at Math and Art conference that I organized in CIRM in December 2023. I am playing with a top made by Ulysse Lacoste in a t-shirt Свободу всем! (Liberty to all, in Russian) demanding the liberty for political prisoners. Both are taken by Bertrand Paris-Romaskevich CC BY-SA.

Institut Camille Jordan
Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
43 boulevard du 11 novembre 1918
F-69622 Villeurbanne Cedexbureau 242
mail : paro собака math точка univ-lyon1 точка fr

Here are the initiatives that I am proud to have been a part of.

Recreational mathematics seminar in LYON (OR la détente)

Recreational mathematics seminar (known as Séminaire de la détente) started as a weekly seminar in the House of Mathematics and Informatics in Lyon MMI. I have created it in 2014 and co-organized this seminar with M. Lhuissier, V. Borelli, V. Seigneur, A. Rivera, L. Mathis and B. Sevennec. My dream was to create the space of exchange between people interested in math in Lyon -- students and professors discussing math together. And it worked quite well! The seminar is still ongoing (it has 10 years!), check out their Facebook page.

May 12: Celebrating Women in Mathematics

May 12 is an international day of Celebration of Women in Mathematics that regroups initiatives all over the world. The tradition has been launched by our international collective in 2019. Check out the site, and participate every year, with an event in your laboratory! Here the article presenting the adventure of May12.

N. Agarwal, C. Araujo, P. Bonfert-Taylor, M. Mahmoudi, M. F. Ouedraogo, O. Paris- Romaskevich, M.-F. Roy, E. Strickland, A. V. Gajardo May 12: Celebrating Women in Mathematics, From One Idea to One Hundred Events, Notices of AMS, journal version (2019)

Journée parité no. 6 and no.7

I was a main organizer of the "Journée parité" of mathematical community in 2023 in Lyon, and a co-organizer of this meeting in 2024 in Marseille. Discover more on the corresponding website. Here are some materials from these meetings :

Here is a list of my preprints and publications, with when possible links to videos of talks and slides. All my math articles and preprints are on arxiv.

Ongoing projects

[A] O. Paris-Romaskevich Trees and flowers on a billiard table, rewrite in progress (2025)

[B] I. Dynnikov, P. Hubert, P. Mercat, O. Paris-Romaskevich, A. Skripchenko Novikov gasket has zero Lebesgue measure, writing in progress

[C] P. Hubert, P. Mercat, O. Paris-Romaskevich Almost all minimal 4-reflections are not weakly mixing, writing in progress

Publications

--mathematics--

[11] M. Bialy, J. Bimmermann, B. Khesin, A. Moreno, O. Paris-Romaskevich, A. Sorrentino, S. Tabachnikov Open problems in billiards and quantitative symplectic geometry, Arnold Mathematical Journal, (2026), to appear

[10] S.Cantat, O. Paris-Romaskevich , J. Xie Free actions of large groups on complex threefolds, Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 54 (2022), no. 5, 1791–1803 | journal |hal

[9] O. Paris-Romaskevich Tiling billiards and Dynnikov's helicoid, Transactions of the Moscow Mathematical Society, 82:1, 157-174 (2021) | arxiv: 2102.10201 | hal : 03175411v1

[8] S.Cantat, O. Paris-Romaskevich Automorhisms of compact Kähler manifolds with slow dynamics,
Trans. Amer. Math. Soc., 374, no. 2, 1351–1389 (2021)
journal | arxiv:2002.03615 | hal-03089240

[7] P. Hubert, O. Paris-Romaskevich Triangle tiling billiards and the exceptional family of their escaping trajectories: circumcenters and Rauzy gasket, Experimental Mathematics, 31(1):58–87 (2022)
journal site | arxiv:1804.00181

[6] O. Paris-Romaskevich Epicycles in the hyperbolic sky, Arnold Math J. 4(3), pp. 251-277, (2019) | arxiv: 1704.01339 | journal version | free journal version, no download

[5] Yu. Ilyashenko, O. Romaskevich Sternberg linearization theorem for skew products, Journal of Dynamical and Control Systems, Volume 22, Issue 3, pp. 595-614 (2016) | arxiv: 1505.05776 | journal version

[4] L.Bowen, A.Bufetov, O. Romaskevich, Mean convergence of Markovian spherical averages for measure-preserving actions of the free group, Geometriae Dedicata, 181 (1), 293-306, (2015) | arxiv: 1502.01797 | journal version

[3] O. Romaskevich, On the incenters of triangular orbits on elliptic billiards, L’Enseignement Mathématique (2) 60 (2014), 247–255 | arxiv: 1304.7588 | journal version

[2] A. Klimenko, O. Romaskevich , Asymptotic properties of Arnold tongues and Josephson effect, Moscow Mathematical Journal, volume 14, issue 2, pp. 367-384, (2014) | arxiv: 1305.6746 | journal version

[1] V. Kleptsyn, I. Schurov, O. Romaskevich Josephson effect and slow-fast systems (in Russian), Nanostructures. Mathematical physics and modelling, 8:1, pp. 31–46, (2013) | arxiv: 1305.6755 | journal version

PhD

Dynamics of physical systems, normal forms and Markov chains

I worked on my PhD under supervision of Étienne Ghys and Yulij Ilyashenko, between Russia and France. I have defended my thesis twice in 2016, in Moscow and in Lyon in order to become кандидат наук and docteur en mathématiques.

Co-authors (in chronological order of collaboration)

Curriculum Vitae, short story

INITIAL SPACE-TIME COORDINATES

Moscow, 6th July 1990

JOBS

2025-26 Masters student in sociology at University of Lyon 2, Program Égalités Formation Continue
2024++ research scientist at Institut Camille Jordan in Lyon
2020 - 2023 research scientist at CNRS and Marseille Mathematics Institute
2017 - 2019 post-doc at IRMAR at University of Rennes I
2016-2017 teaching and research assistant at UMPA at ENS de Lyon

Studies

2007-2012 mathematics and mechanics faculty of Moscow State University
2012-2016 graduate student at National Research University Higher School of Economic in Moscow and École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (working with Étienne Ghys and Yulij Ilyashenko)

Distinctions

2016 L'Oréal-UNESCO prize for Women in Science
2023 Prix spécial d'engagement Irène Joliot-Curie

Languages

I speak and think in English, French and Russian.

See also my LinkedIn account.

Science and cinema club in Lyon -- Bobines de sciences

I organise a cinema-club CinéMaths (2018-23) and now Bobines de Sciences (2023+) as a collaboration with a House of Math and Informatics (MMI) and a cinema Comœdia. For me this ciné-club is an occasion to make a science a tool for democratic debate, and to watch good movies together. To come to Bobines de Sciences, please make a reservation (a couple of weeks before the date of the event) on the site of the cinema. You can also follow the program on the page of MMI.

Programmation Bobines de Sciences 2025/2026 est en cours d'élaboration !
Tous les RDVs ont lieu samedis matin, à 11h, au cinéma Comoedia. Pour voir les films et notez les dates, RDV sur la page des Bobines du site de la MMI.

I will be happy to be involved in the creative process of movie making (from scientific counsil to script writing to directing/co-directing, I have experience with all of this and love doing it). I am interested to be involved in cinema projects not necessarily related to math and science.

Current cinema projects

My past cinema work

Upcoming events

Here are the research conferences we can meet each other, outreach activities in which I participate, as well as some artistic projects and events. Join me at Bobines de Sciences!

2025

2026

photographic memories

I limit my plane travel as much as I can. I am a member of No fly climate sci and I have signed a manifesto Limitation of plane in math laboratories : horizon 2030. I am a part of a minority of people who have an opportunity and privilege to choose to fly (or not!). As a scientist, I think that if even in our own science labs we can't respect the Paris Agreement because "oh there is such a great conference on the other side of the world", then we have no right to ask others to do it.I live in Europe, of course, it is easier for me to live an almost no-plane life. The goal of this page is not to shame you personally on the choices you make. It is rather to inform those who want to invite me to their event happening on the other side of the Earth to do it very much in advance, so that if I were to come, I could prepare a longer stay and such that this stay is scientifically justified.I am very happy to come to any conference/seminar you invite me to if I can reach you by train in 2 or 3 days (starting Lyon). For longer train travel, it is also possible (if planned in advance).In the last two years I flew 11 100 km for work.Here is the list of my flights for work for the last 5 years :
21st September 2021 : 3000 km flight from Moscow to Lyon.
August 2025 : 11,100 km (2.0 t CO_2) from Paris to Boston and back

Phd students

Magali Jay (co-supervision with Pascal Hubert), September 2021 to July 2024
Thesis : Tiling billiards dynamics. Renormalisation of interval exchange transformations and half-translation surfaces, defended on 3rd July 2024
Today Magali Jay is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Leipzig.

Master students

Iryna Fesenko (co-supervision with Pascal Hubert), M1, 2021

Doing outreach activities has always brought me lots of joy and helped me to find meaning in my relationship with mathematics, it also opened many doors to me : from movie making to encounters with social sciences. Hopefully, it also has some positive effect on people who encounter my work !

Математика : portraits of 10 Russian female mathematicians (ongoing project : 2020+)

МАТЕМАТИКА was thought as a chorus of voices of ten women joining into one song of Russia and its mathematics. This project was dreamt as an impression of modern Russian mathematics in many of its different aspects. Initially the project was planned as an exhibition to be presented at the World Meeting for Women in Mathematics, satellite of ICM2022. The project has been frozen since 24 February 2022 (see the statement on our site). Although, the in-detail blog telling the story of a trip through Russia that we made to prepare the exhibition is there for you to read. I hope to come back to this project one day. This is a joint project with a photographer Bertrand Paris-Romaskevich.

Matheuses : LES FILLES, AVENIR DES MATHÉMATIQUES:
a book about girls and mathematics
(project from 2020 to publication in 2024)

Matheuses is a book (in French) about girls in mathematics edited by CNRS Éditions and available in bookshops since January 2024. From 2020 to 2023, I have been one of the organizers of a school for girls in mathematics called Cicadas in CIRM, Marseille (see this article that I have written discussing the interest of such schools, in French). It relates a sociological study conducted at our school by Clémence Perronnet and Alice Pavie, with sociology texts by Clémence Perronnet and put in graphic form by Claire Marc. My contribution to this book is ten math problems between chapters. If you are interested in doing inclusive math outreach, or are questionning yourself about the interest of girls-only math schools, this book can be of some help to you. This project was supported by CNRS Mathematics via its Défi diffusion prize and by CIRM via a 1-week stay "Research in pairs".

You can order the book (already 2d edition!) in any French library . For other countries, speak with your favorite bookshop keeper before passing by capitalist giants...

Mathématiques vagabondes (2020-2025)

On the 12th May 2020 we have created with my friend Marie Lhuissier, a group Mathématiques Vagabondes. Our goal was to make art and science work together, with a particular attention to mathematics. Our main project (since 2020) is Streetmath, drawing mathematics in the streets of Lyon! We decided to close the association due to the big amount of administrative work but we continue doing Streetmath regularly, and we create documentation for all the activities we do (in French), see this section of Images des maths.

• Instagram

Mathematics of the sky (2015-2017)

With my PhD sister Marie Lhuissier and my PhD brother Valentin Seigneur, we have created a website to share mathematics around planetary motion. This site has received a coup de coeur of Prix D'Alembert jury in 2018. Three of us have also written the texts for Mathematical Calendar 2021, under direction of Ana Rechtman, in the spirit of the mathematics of the sky. At the moment, the site is under maintenance but we will recover it !

Theater

I have been thinking about acting and directing actors since 2016. It all started with improv theater, continued with clowning, and then with text theater.

Conferences and performances

I like to explore different forms of mathematical storytelling, here are some eclectic projects I did, all of them somewhere on (one of the) borders between a math talk and a theater performance. I am open to opportunities that will challenge me to create new formats of mathematical storytelling.

(not too much lost in) Translation

• Instagram

I did translate into French a book without words... by Arseniy Akopyan. This book is called Figures sans paroles and is an ode to plane geometry. It is accessible at Amazon for now, and we are happy it exists in this way already. Although we hope to find an editing house in France to help us edit this book.