Claire Bidart was born in 1960. She is a sociologist, director of research at the CNRS (LEST, Aix-Marseille University and CNRS, Aix en Provence). Her doctoral thesis in 1993 was on sociability and friendship. She has since worked on the dynamics of personal networks and life courses.
She designed and directed a longitudinal survey, the "Caen Panel", which followed a population of young people over 20 years who were re-interviewed every three years between 1995 and 2015. Her work with Michel Grossetti and Alain Degenne led to the publication of the book La vie en réseau (Puf), as well as to various exploratory works, particularly methodological. She has also worked on youth, life courses, biographical temporalities, bifurcations, professional integration, the relationship to work and its evolution, and on socialization processes more generally. She is preparing a collective work on personal networks and biographical events and is participating in a major survey on the future of social relations in times of pandemic.