Hiring !
For my SNSF SPARK grant, I am looking to hire a research assistant to work with me for 6 to 8 months, with the earliest start coming August 2026. If you have a solid background in computational neuroscience, or in any related field with a strong interest in speech, please send your applications with a motivation letter, a resume with publications if any, and two possible reference contacts to mamady.nabe@outlook.com.
Obtaining My First Personal Research Grant
As a rite of passage for any researcher, seeking funding for one’s projects is a highly stimulating, though not always easy, exercise. In early March 2025, I submitted a grant application to the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under the SPARK scheme, which funds innovative “high-risk, high-reward” projects for a duration of six months to a year.
The results were announced in November 2025 (with a success rate of 13.4%, SNSF communication for SPARK), and my project was selected: Neural Mechanisms of Adaptive Speech Planning in Natural Conversation. This project aims to understand how the human brain plans and adjusts speech during natural conversation. By directly studying the brain activity of individuals speaking spontaneously, it seeks to reveal the mechanisms that make our exchanges fluid and adaptive.
A New Training Adventure in Project Management
Since November 2025, I have embarked on a new training program in innovative project management through the EIPM (Entrepreneurial and Intrapreneurial Project Management) program. This year-long course is managed by a consortium of six partner European universities: Sorbonne, Charles, Heidelberg, Geneva, Milan, and Warsaw.
What I particularly enjoy about this program is that we work in teams of nine on a core project throughout the year, giving us the opportunity to immediately apply what we learn in class. My team’s project focuses on the design and development of a “future investment solution” that allows users to invest effectively over varying time horizons by prioritizing their life goals. Furthermore, the program takes place in an extraordinarily international setting, emulating the complex realities of the future teams I will manage.
Postdoctorate at the University of Geneva
In February 2023, I began a new position as a Research Engineer/Assistant at the University of Geneva within the Neural Dynamics Lab and the Human Neuron Lab, supervised by Prof. Timothée Proix and Prof. Pierre Mégevand. I work on understanding the mechanisms involved in speech processing during natural conversations, using computational methods to analyze electrophysiological data.
Completion of my PhD in Computer Science
I publicly defended my doctoral thesis on March 14, 2023. This was the culmination of nearly 3.5 years filled with learning and teaching. I loved working on my thesis topic alongside my supervisors, Dr. Julien Diard and Dr. Jean-Luc Schwartz. They were not only an immense source of knowledge but also exemplary supervisors that anyone wishing to pursue a PhD would dream of.
During these 3.5 years, my research was published in renowned venues in the field; notably, a scientific article laying the foundation of my work was published in Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, along with three conference papers in venues such as Interspeech and CogSci. While it is impossible to list everything these years have given me, it was a wonderful experience.
Leaving Atos
I resigned from my position as a Data Scientist at Atos in late September to begin a PhD in Computer Science at Grenoble Alpes University, within the Laboratory of Psychology and Neurocognition (LPNC) and the Gipsa-Lab, supervised by Dr. Julien Diard and Dr. Jean-Luc Schwartz. I will be working on Bayesian cognitive modeling of natural speech perception.
Graduation from Engineering School
And that’s it. The end of five long years of study. From preparing for competitive entrance exams to completing three years in engineering school, the journey has been full of experiences.
I defended my Final Year Project (PFE) at Bull/Atos on September 4, 2018, titled “IO Accelerator Parameters Inference based on Numerical Optimization.” The goal was to contribute to a solution for accelerating applications dedicated to High-Performance Computing (HPC) and supercomputers.
A concrete example of this type of application is in weather forecasting. To make meteorological predictions, simulations perform massive calculations that typically take a long time before yielding interpretable results. My work focused on using Data Science and Machine Learning techniques to find the optimal parameters for these applications.
I am very pleased that this work led to a workshop presentation at the famous ISC (International Supercomputing Conference) and a patent, which is very rewarding. Afterward, I was recruited by the same company to work on a brand-new project for predictive maintenance in data centers.