Jean Gonnord, born in 1947 spent his study time in France and is graduated as engineer from French University "Ecole Supérieure de Physique & Chimie de Paris" and PhD from PARIS XI University (ORSAY) in Nuclear Reactor Physics.
Jean entered CEA (French Atomic Energy Commission) in 1971, where he developed Monte Carlo methods and codes for neutron transport (the TRIPOLI code). After a post-doc in 1978/1979 at ORNL, Jean became deputy head of the shielding laboratory in SACLAY. In 1985 he gave up neutron transport, for computer sciences and took the head of a new robotic laboratory. In 1991 he entered CEA/DAM where he was head of the PSE Division at Limeil.
In 1996, after France decided to stop nuclear testing and to switch to Simulation, he took the position of program director for Numerical Simulation & Computer Sciences at CEA/DAM where he is still to day conducting in particular the TERA program.