Last May, I wrote that I would explore Scala for prototyping and potential outreach activities. Over the last half year, I have been reading its on-line documentation, relevant blogs and books, and example code on Github; and I have tried writing some code snippets. I encountered a bit of a learning curve —especially when it … [Read more…]
Update on January 7th It is done! Yesterday I obtained my HDR, after presenting a selection of my work and reflecting on it with the jury members. An excellent start of the new year, I say. Original post Dear colleagues and friends, it is my pleasure to invite you to my HDR defence, with the … [Read more…]
Since last year, I have been piecing together my HDR. And I have to admit, it is not easy to write this “short second thesis” (in the French academic system, HDR means Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches and is a manuscript that traditionally summarizes one’s work after the PhD). I am simply less motivated to … [Read more…]
Last week, Dr. Lisa Chabrier successfully defended her PhD work on calculating SHAP values and using them to do differential network analysis. Whilst SHAP values are a popular framework for local explanations of machine learning predictions, they come with a serious computational cost. Lisa developed an approximation algorithm to avoid calculating lots of SHAP values … [Read more…]
Update on June 13th, 2025 I was interviewed for a short article on my institute’s website. You can read it here. Note that the article is in French, the English translation will follow soon. Original post Great news! Sara’s work on characterizing the neurons involved in odor interpretation has been published in Nature Neuroscience (see … [Read more…]
It has been… a few years actually, and I finally have some ideas to share on my blog. Indeed, I will make an effort to put out content on a more regular basis than once every few years. The reason is simple: with family life taking priority, I travel a lot less these days and … [Read more…]
Until this autumn I used to spend time on Twitter. I found many an interesting article casually browsing tweets and occasionally I would find a reason to write a tweet myself. Well, that’s history now. I may join a Mastodon server at some point, but for the moment I am going to enjoy the silence. … [Read more…]
A couple of years ago I learned that Guillaume Beslon and Paulien Hogeweg were collaborating under the umbrella of the EvoEvo project (link). Naturally, that caught my attention. Now the project is finished and I have selected some juicy bits. Enjoy the long version or skip to the take-home messages. The central idea of EvoEvo … [Read more…]
After a year-and-a-half at Collège de France in Paris, I have started my permanent position at Inria in Lyon/Villeurbanne. Fyi, Inria is the French national organisation for computational research. I must admit, to not hurry from one short-term job to the next and to have an extended period of time to think is a wonderful … [Read more…]
Digital experiments of how the process of evolution works—also known as in silico (experimental) evolution or simply evolutionary simulations—have been explored and studied since the early days of computing. Nowadays, while using the computer to simulate evolution is a well-accepted approach, not everyone is clear about what it teaches us. As I use such simulations … [Read more…]