Simon Garnier » Curriculum vitae

Curriculum vitae

Simon GARNIER

28 years old

Nationality: french

Current address: Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Guyot Hall, Princeton University.

Photo of Simon Garnier

Current Position

Since January 1st 2009, I obtained a postdoctoral grant from the Fyssen Fundation for one year 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.

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: Project #1: Implementation in a group of micro-robots of the aggregation behavior displayed by the cockroach Blattella germanica and design of a collective decision process based on this clustering behaviour. Project #2: Design of a collective path selection process for micro-robots based on a general model of ants pheromone trail laying. Project #3: Experimental study and modelling of self-organized processes in pedestrians streams. Project #4: Experimental study and modelling of collective path selection in a network of tunnels in the ant Linepithema humile.

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.

Interests	Studying collective behaviors with probabilistics descriptions of individual behaviors linked to the emergence of collective behaviors. Modelling collective behaviors in computer simulations (IBM and Monte Carlo) and in experiments with swarms of autonomous micro-robots.

Skills	Computer: MacOS 9 & X, Linux, Windows; Data analysis with the R and Matlab; Edition of scientific documents with Latex ; Programming in Java, C and C++. Languages: French (mother tongue), English (written and spoken), rudiments in German and Spanish.

2004-2008	Teaching assistant at the University of Toulouse 3 – Paul Sabatier. Disciplines: animal behavior, experimental methodology, statistics, mathematical and computer modelling.

May-June 2006	Visiting student at the Autonomous Systems Lab (director Prof. Dr. Roland Siegwart, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland), funded by an ATUPS grant from the University of Toulouse 3 – Paul Sabatier.

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).

		Asadpour, Masoud Biologically Inspired Robotics Group EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland Website
		Campo, Alexandre IRIDIA Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium Website
		Caprari, Gilles Autonomous Systems Lab ETHZ, Zurich, Switzerland Website
		Couzin, Iain Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA Website
		Fourcassié, Vincent Research Center on Animal Cognition Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Website
		Gautrais, Jacques Research Center on Animal Cognition Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Website
		Jeanson, Raphaël Research Center on Animal Cognition Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Website
		Jost, Christian Research Center on Animal Cognition Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Website
		Moussaid, Mehdi Research Center on Animal Cognition, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France and SOMS ETHZ, Zurich, Switzerland Website
		Tâche, Fabien Autonomous Systems Lab ETHZ, Zurich, Switzerland Website
		Theraulaz, Guy Research Center on Animal Cognition Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Website