In Memoriam – Michel Liquière

The Béziers University Institute of Technology (IUT) and the LIRMM join together to express our deep sorrow at the passing of Mr. Michel LIQUIÈRE, who died on March 24, 2026, in Béziers, at the age of 65.

Michel had been a professor and researcher at the University of Montpellier, at the Béziers University Institute of Technology (IUT) and the LIRMM, since September 1995, following the defense of his dissertation in 1990 at the University of Montpellier II and the start of his career at the University of Réunion, within the Faculty of Sciences and the IREMIA. He retired in September 2024.

At the IUT, he worked in the Networks and Telecommunications department and later in the Multimedia and Internet Professions department, where he helped train many students. He served twice as head of the Multimedia and Internet Professions department, thereby contributing to its development. He was an elected member of the IUT’s Institute Council. He was deeply committed to his teaching and always eager to explore new technologies, mastering them and passing them on to his students. He was one of the first in France to master the Java programming language and to offer trainer-of-trainers courses as early as the late 1990s to members of the Networks and Telecommunications community, and subsequently introduced this new language to students to help them rapidly develop their skills. He was also a pioneer in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies, mastering these technologies and integrating them into his teaching.

After completing his dissertation—which was conducted as part of research at the Montpellier Computer Science Research Center (CRIM) and focused on learning patterns in descriptions of complex objects (Sowa’s conceptual graph model)—Michel established himself as a specialist in symbolic artificial intelligence. He has conducted research at the intersection of knowledge representation, graphs, Galois lattices/concept lattices, and knowledge discovery in databases. He has also played a key role in fostering our scientific community, notably through the Concept Lattices and Applications (CLA) conference, which he organized in 2007 in Montpellier.

Michel was an inspired researcher, a beloved teacher, a master chess player and a fan of all kinds of games, a collector of old books on logic, a great enthusiast of categorical models, an outstanding algorithm developer, and a scientist who held himself and others to the highest standards. We have lost a valued colleague, but also a unique voice that championed the values of freedom, openness, and experimentation. His commitment to hacker culture and the libertarian spirit enriched our community and fueled our thinking. We owe him a great deal.

To pay him a final scientific tribute, you are all invited to participate in the online discussion on the moving scientific testament he dictated to Jean Sallantin:

https://hypostasia.org/lire/42

By signing up for the Hypostasia app, you’ll be able to discuss it, comment on it, and contribute to a tribute to Michel.