With a doctorate in physics, Alain Mermet began his academic career as an associate professor at the Université d’Orsay (now part of the Université Paris-Saclay), then as a professor at the Université de Lyon. He spent four years as a researcher at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, and then served as science and technology attaché at the French embassies in the United States and Norway before being appointed director of the CNRS office in Brussels in September 2021.