I am a microbial ecologist with an interdisciplinary background, originally from France. After studying physics up to the master's degree, I did a PhD in ecology in Toulouse, during which I explored the different facets of ecological research: theoretical modelling, data collection in the field (soil DNA sampling), and statistical modelling of large community composition data. I subsequently studied the global biogeography of open-ocean eukaryotic plankton as a postdoctoral researcher at ENS, Paris, using data from the Tara Oceans project. I am now working on probabilistic modelling for microbial ecology as an Academy of Finland postdoctoral research fellow, with a focus on human and animal microbiota.

The amount of data available on the microbial world rapidly increases, but basic microbial ecology does not benefit from these data at their full potential because of a lack of suitable modelling approaches. Accordingly, my research consists in developing probabilistic models to explore and summarize data structure and compare it to theoretical expectations, so as to advance our understanding of microbial community assembly, dynamics and function. To do this, I combine mechanistic models developed in classical ecology and evolution with modelling approaches that are tailored to microbial data. I apply these models to diverse ecosystems spanning host-associated microbiota, soil microorganisms, and ocean plankton.