Alain Valette was born on December the 24th, 1958. He got his PhD diploma in December 1983, under the supervision of Lucien Waelbroeck and Alain Connes. He is a professor in the University of Neuchatel since June of 1988. His numerous mathematical contributions have a large range, from operator algebras to graph theory and geometric group theory. He wrote several books with different coauthors, notably on Kazhdan's Property (T), expanding graphs and the Baum-Connes conjecture, which are now reference books, and have been crucial in the modern development of these topics.