Jean-Christophe Gay

Jean-Christophe Gay, born in 1962, is a French geographer and full professor at the Côte d'Azur University. Initially a specialist in spatial discontinuities, he has oriented his research towards the practices and places of tourism as well as towards territories ). Jean-Christophe Gay awarding the prix Vautrin Lud to Akin Mabogunje in 2017. Many of his works are devoted to the tropical island world, particularly overseas France where he lived for more than ten years, first as a research fellow to ORSTOM (now IRD) from 1987 to 1989 in Tahiti, within the scientific and technical team of the Atlas of French Polynesia (1993), then as a senior lecturer at the University of Reunion Island from 1995 to 2000, and finally as a research director in New Caledonia, within the IRD from 2009 to 2012. He coordinated the Atlas of New Caledonia, of which he is the scientific co-director as well as the main author, and for which he received the scientific book prize in 2013 at the 15th Salon du livre insulaire d'Ouessant.

From 1995 to 2011, he was part of the MIT research team (Mobilities, itineraries, territories) attached to the Paris Diderot University (Paris 7) and participated in the writing of the series Tourismes in three parts, published from 2002 to 2011 by Belin.