Camille Gontier | Inria, University of Strasbourg

About Me

I am currently a tenured faculty (ISFP - Inria Starting Faculty Position) at INRIA in Strasbourg (FR), working on closed-loop non-invasive neurostimulation and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs).

Between 2023 and 2025, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Pittsburgh (US), working on human BCIs at the RNEL, on a Postdoc.Mobility grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation.

I obtained my PhD in the Theoretical Neuroscience Lab of the University of Bern (CH): my main research topic was the development of statistical inference and Bayesian Active Learning methods, and their application to synaptic recordings.

In my previous life, I was an engineer in the space industry: I am currently the Chief Scientist of LIDE Space (a non-profit organizing parabolic flights for microgravity research), and successfully failed twice to become an astronaut. I remain fascinated by anything that flies and makes a lot of noise (to this, someone once answered “so you study, like, seagulls?” This question still haunts me).

I sometimes write on Stack Exchange, especially about statistics and academia.

My most up-to-date CV, code, and list of publications are available via the widgets on your left, under the photograph taken by Murphy Moschetta during a BCI demonstration in Pittsburgh.

Research Interests

I would define myself as a theoretical neuroscientist, with a keen interest for developing quantative solutions to biological problems. My main research interest is optimal closed-loop control, and its application to neuroscience and BCIs:

I developed an efficient algorithm for closed-loop Bayesian Active Learning and applied it to synaptic inference during my PhD project (PLoS CB paper);
My postdoc project was about the detection and correction on-the-fly of errors during motor control tasks with BCIs (bioRxiv preprint);
Our INRIA team will work on efficient closed-loop neurostimulation and its application to cognitive disorders (INRIA team description).

On my free time, I also enjoy studying space sciences, and help with the organization of microgravity experiments (MGST paper on parabolic flights with gliders, npj Microgravity paper on models of neurons in altered gravity).

Teaching

University of Bern

Physiologie : Synapsen und Regelkreise
Physiologie-Praktikum : Okulomotorik und Vestibularapparat
Introduction to biological and computational learning