Violaine Sautter is a French planetary scientist. Her early work involved the geology at ultradeep levels of the Earth; more recently, her interests have turned to the geology of Mars, particularly concentrating on Martian meteorites and the Gale Crater. [1] She is a director of research for the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), affiliated with the Institut de minéralogie, de physique des matériaux et de cosmochimie (IMPMC) at Sorbonne University. [2]
Sautter earned a Ph.D. in 1983 through the National Museum of Natural History, France (MNHN) and Pierre and Marie Curie University, and completed a Thèse d’Etat in 1989 at Pierre and Marie Curie University. [2] Her 1989 dissertation, Le clinopyroxène alumineux : la mémoire chimique du manteau supérieur lithosphérique, was directed by Olivier Jaoul. [3]
After postdoctoral research in the Grant Institute of Geology at the University of Edinburgh, she joined the CNRS as a junior scientist in 1985, and has been a director of research since 2000. [2]
Sautter is coauthor with Hubert Bari of Diamonds: In the Heart of the Earth, in the Heart of Stars, at the Heart of Power, the catalog of a 2001 exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History, France, published by Vilo International in 2001. [4]
Sautter received the CNRS Bronze Medal in 1991, [2] and the CNRS Silver Medal in 2016. [1]
She was the 2002 winner of the Raymond Furon Prize of the Société géologique de France. [5]