Biography

I’m a robotics researcher at Inria, attached to the Computer Science department at ENS. Since August 2023, I’m the team leader of the Willow research group. My research activities revolves around Robotics, Perception, Machine Learning, Optimization and Control.

In September 2024, I have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant for my research project ARTIFACT, standing for The ARTIficial Motion FACTory. ARTIFACT will start in 2025. If you are interested to join this adventure, don’t hesitate to contact me.

In September 2018, I joined the Willow research group as a postdoctoral researcher fellow. Before that, I was a postdoctoral researcher fellow inside the Gepetto research group at LAAS-CNRS in Toulouse, France. From 2014 to 2017, I was a PhD candidate in the same Gepetto research group. My research was at this time devoted to the understanding of the computational fundations of anthropomorphic locomotion. On one side, I highligthed some mechanismes underlying bipedalism among human beings. On the other side, I developed new mathematical formulations for the locomotion of humanoid robots.

I received my degree in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics with highest honor from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan in 2013. In 2014, I was a visiting student inside the Optimization in Robotics and Biomechanics group with Katja Mombaur at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Open positions

At Willow, we always seek for talented post-doc candidates and engineers to work with us on challenging robotic problems. Fill this form and I will come back to you to discuss about our various opportunities.

Overview

In February 2023, I gave a talk to the IEEE RAS TC on Model-based Optimization for Robotics entitled Progress and Prospects in Optimisation for Learning and Control in Robotics, which highlights our recent contributions to the field.

Main collaborators

My reseach is done in collaboration with: Francis Bach, Adrien Taylor, Stéphane Caron, Jean Ponce, Cordelia Schmid, Josef Sivic and Ivan Laptev for the Machine Learning and Vision aspects.

PhD students

I have also the pleasure to work with passionate and inspiring students:

Quentin Le-Lidec, together with Cordelia Schmid and Ivan Laptev.
Louis Montaut, together with Josef Sivic and Vladimír Petrík.
Wilson Jallet, together with Nicolas Mansard.
Oumayma Bounou, together with Jean Ponce.
Fabian Schramm, together with Nicolas Perrin-Gilbert.
Armand Jordana, together with Ludovic Righetti.
Roland Andrews, together with Adrien Taylor.
Ludovic De Matteis , together with Nicolas Mansard.
Franki Nguimatsia Tiofack.

Post-docs

Etienne Moullet, together with François Bailly and Christine Azevedo.
Etienne Ménager, differentiable simulation and optimal control for soft robots.
Frederike Dümbgen, global optimal control and estimation for robotics.
Ewen Dantec, whole-body and real-time model predictive control for rich contact interactions.
Ajay Sathya, low-complexity algortihms for frugal and contact-rich simulation.

Engineers

Mégane Millan, Pinocchio software engineer.
Joris Vaillant, guru of the Willow open-source software stack.
Olivier Roussel, Tirrex sotware engineer together with Christian Duriez and Fabien Spindler.
Pierre-Guillaume Raverdy, co-head of the Inria robotics lab.
Etienne Arlaud, co-head of the Inria robotics lab.