Family Roots :
Serge Haroche was born on 11 September 1944, inCasablanca, to a Sephardic fatherand a Russian-bornAshkenazic mother.
- His father : Albert Haroche (1920-1998) was a Rabat-trained lawyer whoseparents both worked as teachers at various schools of the Alliance Israélite (AIU) network. They ended up heading the AIU boys' school and girls' school, respectively, inSalé (across the river from Rabat) where Albert was one of their seven children. Both parents had been students at the AIU in their respective hometowns.
- Isaac Haroche (1890-1962) was born inMarrakesh. to the Harrosh family of Marrakesh, descendantsof Sephardim expelled from Spain by the Alhambra Decree of 1492.
- Esther Azerad (1893-1968) was raised inTétouan where she attended the first AIU school, founded therein 1862.
- His mother : Valentine Roublev (1921-1998) was born inOdessato a family of physicians who left Ukraine in the early 1920s. They relocated to Casablanca because their Russian medical degrees were recognized in Morocco. Valentine met Albert Haroche in Rabat as she was studyingto become a teacher of French and German literature. (In Rabat, the Institute of Letters was created in 1912, the Institude of Law was created in 1920.) At first, Serge Haroche was home-schooled by his mother in French and Russian. He lost his Russian fluency when he started attending elementary school at the age of 6. The maternal grandparents of Serge Haroche were:
- Alexandre Roublev (1897-1984). Apparently, he eventually left Morocco and relocated to the United States, obtaining a medicaldegree fromColumbia in 1958.
- Sophie Roublev, née Fromstein (1896-1977).
Albert and Valentine Haroche had 5 children. One died in infancy:- Georges Haroche (1942-1943).
- Serge Haroche our subject (b.1944, in Casablanca).
- Joël Haroche (b.1948) a.k.a. Josh Harel. Lawyer,author. He is the father of the pop singer Raphaël (born 1975-11-07).
- Gilles Haroche Born in Casablanca (1951-09-20). Physician:
- Michel Haroche, born in Paris (1959-2009).
Since 1965, Serge Haroche has been married to the sociologist Claudine Haroche (née Zeligson) whose parents were married in 1936:
- [Louis] Casimir Zeligson was a successfularchitect.
- Raymonde Zelligson (née Sandberg) passed away in 2008.
Serge and Claudine had been playmates as kids from the Jewish community of Russian émigrés in Casablanca (so was Serge's younger brother Joël). They drifted apart for 15 years before meeting again in Paris, by chance, in the Spring of 1964. They have two grown children:
Early Life :
Like many French-educated Jewish families from Morocco, the parentsof Serge Haroche relocated to France in1956, at the end of the French protectoratein Morocco. Three of their sons (Serge, Joël, Gilles) wereborn in Morocco. The fourth one (Michel) was born in Paris, in 1959.
Serge Haroche received his secondary education at the Lycée Carnot (Baccalauréat in 1961). Then he spent two years of classes préparatoires (Maths Sup, Maths Spé) at the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand. In the Summer of 1963, Serge Haroche ranked first in thePolytechniqueentrance contest and third forENS,which he chose to enter. From 1963 to 1967, Haroche was an ENS student in Paris, attending lectures by the likes of Alfred Kastler(1902-1984;Nobel 1966) and Claude Cohen-Tanoudji(b. 1933;Nobel 1997), his future doctoral adviser.
He graduated in 1967 with an Agrégation and Doctorat de troisième cycle.
Career :
In 1971, Serge Haroche earned a doctorate from Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC, Paris VI) underClaude Cohen-Tannoudji. His doctoral examining committee was stellar. It consisted of:
In 1972-1973, Haroche was a post-doc in the lab of Art Schawlow (1921-1999;Nobel 1981) at Stanford.
From 1974 to 1984, Haroche taught Quantum Mechanics at Polytechnique (where, incidentally,the authorwas a student of his, in the Fall of 1977).
Serge Haroche was full professor at Paris VI (UPMC) from 1975 to 2001 andhead of the Physics department at the Ecole Normale Supérieure from 1994 to 2000.
He held thechair of Quantum Mechanicsat the Collège de France from2001 to 2015. Shortly before receiving the Nobel Prize in 2012, he was elected Administrator of the Collège de France, for a 3-year term.
In 2013, Serge Haroche became a Commander in the French Legion of Honor. He wasnominatedGrand Officer on 14 july 2017 (to take effect at a ceremony to be scheduled by himself, within two years).
Haroche is a member of the French Académie des sciences and a Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
