AI4TheSciences program welcomed the first 15 doctoral students

Coming from Australia, Colombia, Greece, India, Iran or Spain, students were selected, among over 200 applications, to join the first cohort of the AI4TheSciences program and conduct research at the interfaces of artificial intelligence or big data processing.

As a founding member of the Institut PR[AI]RIE, PSL has a strong scientific community and a broad training program in artificial intelligence and data processing within its 140 laboratories.
In order to contribute to the structuring of this research community, the university initiated in 2020, with the support and co-funding of the European program Horizon 2020 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions-COFUND, the doctoral program Artificial Intelligence for the Sciences. The five-year project will include two doctoral cohorts, in September 2021 and in September 2022. It will enable the funding of 26 doctoral contracts within PSL laboratories in all disciplines using artificial intelligence or massive data processing techniques.

The many fields covered - astrophysics, engineering sciences, chemistry, the humanities and social sciences - by the program's first doctoral works are varied and are allocated among the laboratories of six PSL Component Schools (Observatoire de Paris - PSL, ESPCI Paris - PSL, Mines Paris - PSL, ENS - PSL, EPHE - PSL, and Collège de France). Each doctoral student will receive dual supervision: a dissertation adviser (that is, a PSL researcher specializing in their discipline), and a co-adviser specializing in AI or massive data techniques - the latter may come from a laboratory outside of PSL or from a private partner located in France or Europe.

The doctoral students enrolled in the program, in addition to the activities of the doctoral school in their discipline, will be trained in AI and Machine Learning techniques, in writing popularized articles, in Open Science, in acquiring non-academic cross-disciplinary skills, etc. Thus, at the end of August, the winners attended, alongside other PSL students, the intensive week of the PSL data science program in order to acquire the basics of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Since the beginning of October, the doctoral student community has also been meeting every week at the seminar led by Pierre Ablin (Dauphine - PSL) and Alexandre Allauzen (ESPCI Paris - PSL), proving them with an opportunity to communicate ideas with researchers, to report methodological difficulties, and to take stock of the progress made in their subjects. Each week, international students also receive instruction in French, to improve their knowledge of the language and facilitate their integration into French research projects.
Throughout the year, doctoral students in the program will be invited to participate in scientific events organized by the PR[AI]RIE Institute, of which PSL is a founding member, as well as in the Data Science program's intensive weeks available to the entire PSL student community, or in events organized only for the cohort (Summer School on the Mines Sophia Antipolis campus, under the aegis of Elie Hachem), or even in dedicated lecture series offered by the university. These events include the PR[AI]RIE scientific seminars, conference cycles, etc.

This first cohort, including 33% young women researchers, will be joined by 11 new PhD students at the beginning of the 2022 academic year. The call for applications is open until February 12, 2022.

The first 15 dissertation projects selected in the first cohort

• 3DMorphEmbryo - AI-assisted reconstruction of 3D human embryo morphology from 2D medical images to improve the prediction of its development potential. Dissertation by Alessandro Pasqui, directed by Hervé Turlier (CIRB Collège de France) and Bogdan Stanciulescu (CAOR – Centre de Robotique).
• Advanced methods for enhancing interpretability of AI tools with application to the energy sector. Dissertation by Konstantinos Parginos, directed by Georges Kariniotakis (Centre PERSEE, Mines Paris - PSL) and Ricardo Bessa (Center for Power and Energy Systems at INESC TEC).
• Dark energy studies with the Vera Rubin Observatory LSST & Euclid - Developing a combined cosmic shear analysis with Bayesian neural networks Dissertation by Biswajit Biswas, directed by Eric Aubourg (Laboratoire APC, Observatoire de Paris - PSL) and Junpeng Lao (Google Switzerland).
• The politics of coding, dissertation by Daniele Cavalli, directed by J. Peter Burgess (République des Savoirs, Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL) and Jean-Gabriel Ganascia (LIP6, Sorbonne Université).
• Physically Informed Machine Leaning for controlling unruptured intracranial aneurysms dissertation by Pablo Jeken Rico, directed by Elie Hachem (CEMEF, Mines Paris - PSL) and Bruno Figliuzzi (Centre de Morphologie Mathématique).
• Towards neuromorphic computing on quantum many-body architectures, dissertation by Melissa Alzate, directed by Lionel Aigouy and Alexandre Zimmers (Laboratoire de Physique et d’Etude des Matériaux, ESPCI Paris - PSL).
• Data-driven Enzyme Evolution dissertation by Mats Von Tongeren, directed by Yannick Rondelez (Gulliver Lab, ESPCI Paris - PSL) and Olivier Rivoire (CIRB, Collège de France).
• Machine learning for origin of life in the RNA world dissertation by Francesco Calvanese, directed by Philippe Nghe (UMR Chimie Biologie Innovation, ESPCI Paris - PSL) and Martin Weigt (LCQB, Sorbonne Université).
• Artificial Intelligence for Seismic Hazard Monitoring with InSAR, dissertation by Negin Fouladi Moghaddam, directed by Romain Jolivet (Laboratoire de Géologie, Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL) and Bertrand Rouet-Leduc (Los Alamos National Lab, Geophysics group).
• Impact of human cognitive traits on financial market formation dissertation by Stefano Vrizzi, directed by Boris Gutkin et Stefano Palminteri (LNC2, Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL).
• Language Acquisition in Brains and Algorithms: towards a systematic tracking of the evolution of semantic representations in biological and artificial neural networks dissertation by Linnea Evanson, directed by Yves Boubenec (Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL) and Pierre Bourdillon (Hôpital Fondation Adolphe de Rothschild).
• Artificial Intelligence to Decode the Genomic Replication Programme of Human Cells dissertation by  Amir Hossein Zeraati Aliabadi, directed by Olivier Hyrien (IBENS, Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL) and Benjamin Audit (LPENSL).
• Learning dynamics in biological and artificial neural networks dissertation by Pierre Orhan, directed by Yves Boubenec (Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL) and Jean-Rémi King (Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research).
• Using vocal interactions to study syntax of dolphins acoustic communication dissertation by Chiara Semenzin, directed by German Sumbre (IBENS, Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL) and Gonzalo de Polavieja (Collective Behavior Lab, Champalimaud Foundation)
• Processing eDNA data into relevant indicators of ecosystem health and biodiversity monitoring dissertation by Letizia Lamperti, directed by Stéphanie Manel (CEFE, EPHE - PSL) by Loïc Pellissier (ETH – WSL)