[7][6] Jean-François Denisse matriculated in 1936 at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS Paris) and in 1941 passed the agrégation in physical sciences.
Upon his return to France in 1946, he became a graduate student studying radio astronomy in the physics laboratory of ENS Paris.
[8] His thesis, supervised by Yves Rocard, dealt with solar activity involving the propagation of waves in plasmas.
[9] From 1951 to 1953 as an intermittent visiting scientist at Dakar's École des Hautes Études (now part of Cheikh Anta Diop University), Denisse led members of his group as they made African solar observations, particularly during partial eclipses.
He was the president from 1967 to 1973 of Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES),[8] from 1974 to 1975 of the Bureau des longitudes,[4] and from 1978 to 1982 of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR).