Career
Jost was Director of the Geographical Research Center at Paul Verlaine University – Metz, then joined the University of New Caledonia in 1993, and later the University of French Polynesia in Tahiti, where he is Professor of Geography and Development and dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences, Languages and Literature. Although the author of over 100 scientific papers on various subjects, Jost is particularly associated with Clipperton Island. Surveys he made there in 1997 and 2001 (confirmed in 2005) established that Clipperton is the largest colony of masked boobies in the world, with 110,000 individuals at that time.
Jost has also researched and written on other aspects of geography and ecology of the Pacific Ocean, and has worked, studied, and traveled extensively in Africa and Asia.