Curriculum vitae

Research interests

I am interested in the development of computational methods to understand evolutionary processes at the population and species level, for instance to study how past climatic and environmental changes have influenced the pattern of genetic diversity of a given species, or to detect evidence of local adaptations from genomic information.

I have been recently studying the effect of complex demography on the molecular genetic diversity of a species, for instance such as after a spatial expansion in a heterogeneous environment. I am therefore investigating how various  aspects of its genetic diversity are influenced by historical and spatial constraints, and how these effects contrast with those of selection. We are thus aiming at designing better tests of selective neutrality, taking into account the potentially complex demographic history of a species.

I am also involved in the development  and the application of approximate Bayesian computations (ABC) methods, which rely on massive computer simulations, to reconstruct the past demography of a species from its genetic diversity, and to test among various alternative evolutionary scenarios. We hope to extend this approach  to estimate patterns and intensities of selection at the genomic level. These developments should be applied to modern humans and common voles, or other invasive species.

I am also participating to the analysis of gene expression data in various fish species, with the aim to detect genes involved in the control of life history traits (brown trout) or in susceptibility to diseases (white fish).

I am finally devoting quite a lot of time to the maintenance and extension of various computer programs listed here, including a new version (3.5) of the program Arlequin for the analysis of population genetics data.