Christiane Cocozza-Thivent was trained in probability theory at Laboratoire de Probabilités of Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI University). In 1983 she defended her State doctorate whose main subject was infinite particle systems.
In 1986 she became full professor at Université de Technologie de Compiègne (France) where she supervised theses in image processing, speech recognition and reliability, in partnership with industrial companies. In 1991 she was appointed at Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée (now Gustave Eiffel University) where she initiated and was in charge of the applied mathematics cursus.
Her research interests include stochastic models in relation with industrial problems and especially with predictive reliability.