Latest News • Co-Chair of the Generative & Developmental Systems Track (GDS 2012), at GECCO, July 7-11, 2012, Philadelphia. • Paper accepted in Artificial Life, September 5, 2011 (to appear in 2012). PREPRINT • General Chair of the 11th European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL), August 8-12, 2011, Paris. FLYER • Invited article in PerAda Magazine, May 2011. PAPER

Research Teaching     Publications Activities & Grants     Industry Extracurricular

Education & Diplomas

Professor Qualification (eligibility to senior faculty positions), French National Council of Universities, France, 1/2011 Habilitation (ability to supervise grad research), Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6), France, 4/2010 Title: From the Simulation of Complex Biological Systems to the Design of Artificial Morphogenetic Systems, and Back. MEMOIR Fields: artificial life (biological modeling & bio-inspired engineering), neural dynamics (spiking neural networks, complex systems) Jury: Wolfgang Banzhaf (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Yves Frégnac (CNRS Gif-sur-Yvette), Jean-Louis Giavitto (CNRS / Université d'Evry), Guillaume Beslon (INSA Lyon / IXXI), Yves Burnod (Inserm), Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni (UPMC Paris 6), Jean Petitot (Ecole Polytechnique / EHESS) Ph.D. in applied mathematics / computational physics, Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6), France, 5/1991 (aged 25) Title: A Contribution to the Study of Representations in the Nervous System and in Artificial Neural Networks (dissertation in French) HTML Fields: computational neuroscience, neural networks, machine learning, computer vision, biological modeling, cognitive science Advisor: Elie Bienenstock, CNRS (currently Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience and Division of Applied Mathematics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island) M.S. in theoretical physics, Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris, France, 9/1987 ENS and Ecole Polytechnique are the two most selective and prestigious graduate schools in France. Lead graduate candidate, "Grandes Ecoles", Paris, France, 7/1985 (aged 19) Attained single-digit ranks at several competitive entrance examinations to the best French graduate schools in science & engineering: Ranked 1st of 2,818 candidates at the Ecole Centrale Paris league examination (group of four schools, including Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité and Ecole Supérieure d'Optique) Ranked 5th of 2,239 candidates at the Ecole des Mines de Paris league examination (group of eight schools, including Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace, and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Paris) Ranked 9th of 222 candidates (physics section) at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris Ranked 7th at the written examination (physics section) of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de St-Cloud High-school & undergrad student, Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris, 1979–1985 Lycée Louis-le-Grand is ranked Nr. 1 high school/college in France. Born in 1966.

Chronological Summary

11. Research Group in Biomimetics (GEB), Universidad de Málaga, Spain Research Scientist, 9/2011–Present 10. Complex Systems Institute, Paris Ile-de-France (ISC-PIF), a research group ("GIS") part of CREA Laboratory, Ecole Polytechnique & CNRS (UMR7656), Paris, France Elected Full Member ("Membre plein"), CREA, 11/2006–Present Director, ISC-PIF, 1/2009–12/2010 (in parallel with below) Research Scientist ("Chercheur contractuel" CNRS), ISC-PIF and CREA, 9/2007–8/2011 Research Engineer ("Ingénieur de recherche" CNRS), ISC-PIF and CREA, 11/2006–8/2007 9. University of Nevada, Reno, US Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, 7/2005–6/2006 Research Assistant Professor, Brain Computation Laboratory, 8/2004–6/2005 8. INDUSTRY: Akheron Technologies, Palo Alto, California, US Chief Engineer, 3/2002–8/2004 7. INDUSTRY: BIOwulf Genomics, Berkeley, California, US Senior Software Architect, 11/2000–2/2002 6. INDUSTRY: RedCart.com, San Francisco, California, US Senior Software Engineer & Architect, 7/1999–11/2000 5. INDUSTRY: Neuron Data, US and France Senior Software Engineer, 8/1998–7/1999, Mountain View, California, US Software Engineer, Research & Development, 4/1995–7/1998, Paris, France 4. CREA Laboratory, Ecole Polytechnique & CNRS (UMR7656), Paris, France Research Associate ("Chargé de recherche" X), 10/1996–9/1997 (in parallel with 5.) also Elected Associate Member, 1995-1998; Elected Foreign Associate, 1998-2006 (in parallel with 5.-9.) 3. Institute for Neural Computation, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany Postdoctoral Assistant, 10/1991–12/1994 2. Electronics Laboratory, School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry (ESPCI), Paris, France Doctoral Fellow, 10/1987–9/1991 (aged 21-25) 1. Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris, France Ph.D. Student, 10/1987-9/1991 (located at 2.) M.S. Student ("DEA"), 10/1986-9/1987 Undergrad Senior ("Licence/Maîtrise"), 10/1985-9/1986

Career Overview

I have over 15 years of research and teaching experience at leading academic institutions in Europe and the United States. My research activities address the modeling and simulation of complex systems and self-organization—especially artificial life, spiking neural networks, and multi-agent systems—toward a new form of engineering inspired by biological and techno-social complexity. In addition, I have 9 years of industry experience as a software engineer & architect, a significant asset in my current academic career where proficiency in computer technologies and scientific programming is required for both research and teaching. A physics alumnus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris (the most selective college in France), I completed my doctoral degree in 1991 at the age of 25 in applied mathematics/computational physics (neural network models), then was appointed to a postdoctoral position at the Institute for Neural Computation in Bochum, Germany. Directly after my postdoc, I decided to pursue opportunities in the software industry, while also continuing research at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, in the CREA Institute (a research center in cognitive science and self-organization). In 1998, I relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and assumed lead engineering and architect roles in several start-up companies. Since 2004, I have resumed academic research and teaching on a full-time basis. For the first two years I was a Research/Visiting Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), collaborating with the Brain Computation Laboratory and the Department of Biology. I came back to Paris in 2006 and was offered research positions at the Complex Systems Institute, Paris Ile-de-France (administered by CNRS, France's national research council). I then became its new director during two years in 2009 and 2010, but have since handed over this day-to-day management responsibility to dedicate myself again to full-time research. I currently have the leisure of doing this in the Research Group in Biomimetics at the University of Málaga, Spain. Since my return to academia, I have strengthened and initiated important scientific relationships and created several original research projects with various institutions in Europe and the US. In addition to my previous publications, this new period in itself has led to a flurry of articles, book chapters, contributions to (and organization of) conferences, and other papers in preparation (on several different topics). I have also been very active in teaching. Most recently (Fall 2011), I gave a course on agent-based models for the European Erasmus Mundus II Master's in "Complex Systems Science", which I co-created and coordinated at Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. I also co-organized a series of graduate seminars on cognitive and neural science at the same school (Fall 2009 and 2010) and was the principal organizer of the annual Complex Systems Summer School in Paris (2008, 2009). My main original course explores canonical examples of complex systems through agent-based modeling and numerical simulation. It was born at my previous US institution, when the Department of Computer Science at UNR welcomed my proposal to add to their curriculum an original, cross-disciplinary graduate seminar on complex systems (2005, 2006). I designed and developed this course entirely by myself, including lectures, readings, student presentations, programming assignments and supervision of term projects. In all institutions where I taught it, students and auditing faculty members have given very positive feedback on the course contents and my teaching abilities. Added to two other undergraduate level courses in computer science (2005, 2006), I have created over 1,000 original course slides, many of which are now used by other instructors. Additionally, I obtained in April 2010 the French "Habilitation" diploma (ability to supervise graduate research, based on a dissertation and defence in front of a jury), and in January 2011 I received the "Professor Qualification" (eligibility to senior faculty positions) from the French National Council of Universities. In summary, I was originally trained in fundamental research and have complemented my knowledge with industry's technological and pragmatic challenges. I am now bringing along this double theoretical and practical experience to durably stay in academia, where my heart belongs. My greatest joy and sense of fulfillment come from creating innovative scientific models with engineering applications, and communicating the passion of research to my students and peers. For more information, please visit the different sections of my website. Do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.