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Simon GARNIER 29 years old Nationality: french Current address: Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Guyot Hall, Princeton University. |
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Current Position
Since January 1st 2009, I work at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey). I work there in collaboration with Prof. Iain Couzin about the formation of exploratory and foraging trail networks in the Argentine ants Linepithema humile, the organization of traffic and the formation of bridges in the army ant Eciton burchelli and the treatment and the integration of information during collective decision-making in school of golden shiner (Notemigonus crysoleucas).
I also pursue external collaboration with the group of Prof. Guy Theraulaz at the University of Toulouse (human crowd behavior, collective robotics and trail formation in Argentine ants) and with the group of Prof. Marco Dorigo at the Université libre de Bruxelles (collective discrimination and decision-making in robotics swarms).
Research interests and skills
| Interests |
My work is related to various research fields, including ethology, experimental psychology, cognitive and social sciences and swarm intelligence.
I am mainly interested by the emergence of intelligent collective behaviors in groups of social animals. I dedicate a part of my work on the observation, description and modelling of the self-organized processes leading to consensus decision making in social insect colonies and schools of fish. I also study phenomena related to traffic organization in ants and human beings. Finally, I apply the principles underlying self-organization in social animals to the coordination of robotics swarms, especially to perform efficient collective decisions in unreliable environments.
My work always relies on a strong experimental background that supports the design of data-driven models. I believe that theoretical and experimental work should proceed together and emulate each other as much as possible. This approach has proven to be very efficient when applied to the study of collective animal behaviors.
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| Skills |
Experimental work: I have been trained to perform experiments with animals (ants and fish mainly) and human beings. I am familiar with all the classical methods of observations and data analysis used in ethology and experimental psychology, including automated image analysis and the development of ad hoc softwares.
Theoretical work: I mostly use individual based modelling (IBM) to simulate my models of collective animal behaviors. But I have also been trained to and have published work based on models with differential equations.
Computer: MacOS 9 & X, Linux/BSD, Windows; Data analysis with R and Matlab; Image treatment and video tracking; Edition of scientific documents with Latex; Programming in Java, C and C++; Design and administration of dynamic websites (see here and here for instance, in addition to this website).
Languages: French (mother tongue), English (written and spoken), rudiments in German and Spanish.
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Education
| 2008 | PhD Degree from the University of Toulouse, with a speciality in Ethology. I studied and modelled collective behaviors involving self-organized mechanisms and I transfered them to groups of small autonomous robots. My research projects were:
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| 2004 | DEA Neurosciences, Behavior and Cognition. French post-graduate degree from the University of Toulouse 3 – Paul Sabatier (FRANCE) – 1st class honours. |
| 2003 | M.Sc. in Behavior and Neurosciences from the University of Toulouse 3 – Paul Sabatier (FRANCE) – 1st class honours. |
| 2002 | B.Sc. in Biochemistry, Cellular Biology and Physiology from the University of Bordeaux 2 – Victor Segalen (FRANCE) – 1st class honours. |
Relevant work experience
| 2004-2008 | Teaching assistant at the University of Toulouse 3 – Paul Sabatier. Disciplines: animal behavior, experimental methodology, statistics, mathematical and computer modelling. Levels: undergraduate and master studies. |
| May-June 2006 | Visiting student at the Autonomous Systems Lab (director Prof. Dr. Roland Siegwart, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland). |
| February 2005 | Visiting student at the Institute for Traffic and Economics (director Prof. Dr. Dirk Helbing, Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany). |
| 2003-2004 | DEA research project "The embodiment of cockroach aggregation behavior in a group of micro-robots", Collective Intelligence in Social Insects and Artificial Systems group (Guy Theraulaz & Christian Jost), Research Center on Animal Cognition (CRCA, Toulouse). |
| 2002-2003 | M.Sc. research project "The embodiment of cockroach behavior in a micro-robot", Collective Intelligence in Social Insects and Artificial Systems group (Guy Theraulaz & Christian Jost), Research Center on Animal Cognition (CRCA, Toulouse). |
Grants and awards
| 2009 | Oxford Risk grant for scientific expertise on a research program on human crowds: 5000 £/ ~8000 $. |
| 2009 | Fyssen Foundation postdoctoral study grant for a study on trail network formation in Argentine ants: 25000 €/ ~34000 $. |
| 2006 | ATUPS grant from University of Toulouse for a 2 months visit at the Autonomous Systems Lab (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland): 1500 €/ ~2000 $. |
| 2005 | Best paper award at the 2nd IEEE Swarm Intelligence Symposium (Pasadena, California): 500$. |
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Thales grant for a workshop at the Thales Annual Meeting on Human Resources Management: 2500 €/ ~3500$.
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Current and former collaborators
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Asadpour, Masoud Biologically Inspired Robotics Group EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland Website | |
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Campo, Alexandre IRIDIA Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium Website | |
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Caprari, Gilles Autonomous Systems Lab ETHZ, Zurich, Switzerland Website | |
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Couzin, Iain Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA Website | |
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Fourcassié, Vincent Research Center on Animal Cognition Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Website | |
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Gautrais, Jacques Research Center on Animal Cognition Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Website | |
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Helbing, Dirk Chair of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation ETH Zürich, Switzerland Website | |
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Jeanson, Raphaël Research Center on Animal Cognition Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Website | |
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Jost, Christian Research Center on Animal Cognition Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Website | |
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Moussaid, Mehdi Research Center on Animal Cognition, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France and SOMS ETHZ, Zurich, Switzerland Website | |
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Tâche, Fabien Autonomous Systems Lab ETHZ, Zurich, Switzerland Website | |
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Theraulaz, Guy Research Center on Animal Cognition Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Website | |
Other hobbies and interests
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I played (team) handball for more than 15 years and taught this sport to teenagers during 4 years.
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I developed a passion for photography (film and digital), especially street photography. I started recently my own photographic blog at the following address: http://www.simongarnier.org.