Philippe Ciarlet is a former student of the École Polytechnique and the École des ponts et chaussées.

He completed his PhD at Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland in 1966 under the supervision of Richard S. Varga.

He also holds a doctorate in mathematical sciences from the Faculty of Sciences of Paris (doctorate under the supervision of Jacques-Louis Lions in 1971).

 

He headed the mathematics department of the Laboratoire central des Ponts et Chaussées (1966-1973) and was a lecturer at the École polytechnique (1967-1985), professor at the École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (1978-1987), consultant at INRIA (1974-1994).

From 1974 to 2002, he was a professor at the University of Pierre et Marie Curie where he directed the laboratory of Numerical Analysis from 1981 to 1992.

 

He is Professor Emeritus at the City University of Hong Kong.

Member of the Academy of Technology in 1989, Member of the French Academy of Sciences since 1991 (in the Mechanical and Computer Sciences section),[4] Member of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 2001,

Member of the European Academy of Sciences in 2003, Member of the World Academy of Sciences in 2007, Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009, Member of the American Mathematical Society since 2012, and Member of the Hong-Kong Academy of Sciences in 2015.