I’m a bit of a jack of all trade. A neuroscientist by training, turned artificial neural network researcher and engineer, neuromorphics engineer and software developer. I love exploring new things !
I currently hold a postdoc position in the lab of Thomas Cleland at Cornell University oriented towards a computational neuroscience approach where we are working on the development of better olfactory processing models and the implementation of these models in neuromorphic architectured. In more details we are investigating how the distributions of input activation enables the coordinated computational elements of a functional circuit (i.e., neurons, synapses and network motifs) to operate within their effective response ranges since sensory systems being exposed to relatively unconstrained input variance must transform and regularize these signal patterns – while preserving their information content – before communicating them to downstream regions.
Previously, I spent 1.5 years as a postdoctoral associate in New York University, in the lab of Alexander Reyes, working between Alex’s lab and the lab of Stefano Fusi at Columbia University’s Center for Theoretical Neuroscience. The project was centered around learning and memory mechanisms, involving both an in-vitro and a modeling approach working synergically. The in vitro approach used cortical neuron cultures and whole-optic electrophysiology to probe memory storage abilities based on the modeling approach that elaborated a memory storage model of long-term memory. Working back and forth between those two approches we aimed at validating the computational model by contributing essential missing variable from in-vitro networks and at the same time improve the model’s abilities to represent mechanisms of biological learning and memory storage. Unfortunately, this project was cut short due to funding cuts.
Before that, I obtained my Phd in Neuroscience in France from Lyon 1 University in December 2017. My project was supervised by Nathalie Mandairon and Anne Didier from the Neuropop team of the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center. My thesis work was to better understand the learning and memory mechanisms involved in olfactory perceptual learning in the olfactory bulb in mice. My focus was on how the olfactory bulb circuitry -involving both preexisting and adult-born neurons- is modified after complex environmental modifications (involving the discrimination learning of several pairs of perceptualy close odorants at the same time) or changing environmental modifications (involving the discrimination learning of different pairs of odorants over time). I studied this using mice behavioral analysis, immunochemistry staining, neuron morphologogy analysis, optogenetics and modeling (integrate and fire neurons).
Besides academia, I’ve done consulting work in different startup doing data science and research scientist consulting. I have also spend time democratizing science through Neuromatch, a worldwide non-profit movement with the goal of equitable participation in scientific research.
In my spare time I’m enjoying spending time with my family (my wife and twin daughters), going on hikes, climbing, homelabing, woodworking, gardening and tinkering widely with multiple projects.