Welcome

I am Professeur des Universités (Professor) in Computer Science at Sorbonne Université, in Paris, France. I conduct my research at the Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique (ISIR, a joint Sorbonne Université / CNRS / INSERM lab in AI and Robotics), in collaboration with wonderful Ph.D. students and postdocs, as well as great colleagues at ISIR and beyond. Since October 2024, I am also affiliated with the Laboratoire Jean Perrin (LJP, a joint Sorbonne Université / CNRS lab in biophysics), where I spend one day per week.

Research

I study collective adaptive systems: how groups of simple agents—robotic or biological—can learn, evolve, and self-organize in open environments. I am interested in both natural systems (using computer simulations to understand the dynamics of social learning) and artificial systems (designing distributed online reinforcement and evolutionary learning algorithms for swarm robotics). I (mostly) build individual-based models and make numerical simulations. I also use custom-built experimental platforms such as the Pogobot swarm (200 open-source robots developed at ISIR).
Research topics: collective adaptive systems, swarm robotics, social learning, smart active matter.
Methods: machine learning, evolutionary computation, evolutionary dynamics, statistical physics.

Teaching

I teach at Sorbonne Université in the Computer Science department (incl. the AI and Decision master program), as well as in the Cognitive Science department, and (occasionally) in the Life Science department. The main courses I am involved in are about AI and Robotics (L3, M1 and M2), Adaptive Collective Systems (M1) and Agent-based Modelling (L2).

Publications

My complete publication list is accessible on Google Scholar and on HAL.

Contact

Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique
Sorbonne Université – Campus Pierre et Marie Curie
Pyramide tours 55-56
4, place Jussieu
75005 Paris
France

Office: T65-66, room 306-c
Mail: ni*****.bre*****@sorbonne-universite.fr
Tel: 01.44.27.63.09 (please use mail)
Orcid: 0000-0002-8241-7461