Célia Benquet

Célia Benquet

Doctoral Researcher

M-Lab of Adaptive Intelligence, EPFL

I am a fourth-year PhD candidate in computational neuroscience at the M-Lab of Adaptive Intelligence (EPFL, Switzerland). My research lies at the intersection of machine learning and neuroscience, where I develop data-driven models to study and replicate how biological and artificial agents actively seek information in complex and uncertain environments. I work on representation learning, contrastive methods, and time-series analysis of high-dimensional behavioral and neural data. A key focus is understanding how vision and movement interact to support adaptive decision-making.

Beyond neuroscience, I am broadly interested in applications of machine learning to real-world problems — from intelligent systems and robotics to health and brain–computer interfaces. As my PhD progresses, I am extending my work to reinforcement learning, combining behavioral modeling and neural representations to study active information-seeking and adaptive strategies.

Interests
  • Computational Neurosciences
  • Artificial & neural intelligence
  • Contrastive & Representation Learning
  • Motor Control, Vision & Learning
  • Time-Series & High-Dimensional Data
Education
  • PhD in Electrical Engineering (ELLIS Society PhD Fellow; EPFL PhD Excellence Fellow), Present

    EPFL

  • MSc in Computational Sciences & Life Sciences Engineering (EPFL-WISH Foundation Fellow), 2022

    EPFL

  • BSc in Life Science Engineering, 2019

    EPFL

Experience

 
 
 
 
 
EPFL, MLAI, Prof. Mackenzie Weygandt Mathis
Doctoral Researcher
May 2023 – May 2027 Geneva, Switzerland
  • Develop novel representation learning methods for large-scale biological time-series, resulting in Unified CEBRA, a framework for integrating neural recordings across experiments (under review).
  • Led the development of an augmented-reality platform combining game engine, hardware and behavioral experiments, coordinating a 20-author collaboration across three laboratories (Benquet et al. 2026).
  • Mentored 6 MSc and semester students, providing technical guidance on machine learning and software development.
 
 
 
 
 
EPFL, MLAI
Research Software Engineer
Oct 2022 – May 2023 Geneva, Switzerland
  • Core contributor to CEBRA, an open-source machine learning framework (Nature, 2023, +1000 GitHub stars).
  • Developed new model architectures, data management & inference pipelines, reproducible API, and software structure.
 
 
 
 
 
Harvard University, Uchida laboratory
Visiting Graduate Student
Feb 2022 – Sep 2022 Cambridge, US
  • Compared latent representations in recurrent neural networks and biological neural populations during decision making to study biological computation.
 
 
 
 
 
Rhythm Diagnostic Systems (Medtech)
R&D ML Engineer Intern
Aug 2021 – Feb 2022 Strasbourg, France
  • Evaluated machine learning algorithms for ECG and PPG signal quality assessment to improve a wearable cardiac monitoring device.
  • Designed and benchmarked anomaly detection pipelines on clinical and synthetic datasets, comparing supervised and density estimation approaches.
  • Built reproducible evaluation pipelines and introduced application-specific performance metrics to balance clinical safety, data availability, and computational efficiency.

Open-Source Contributions

  • CEBRA (1000+ stars): Core contributor. Developing model architectures, inference/data pipelines, and reproducible API for a widely-used open-source representation learning framework for biological time-series analysis.
  • FreelyMovingVR4Mice (related to Benquet et al. 2026): Core contributor. Developing an open-source software framework integrating Unity, behavioral control, and hardware interfaces for freely moving virtual reality experiments in mice.
  • CEBRA-lens (under active development): Core contributor. Developing a Python library for mechanistic interpretability of CEBRA models.

Publications

Visual uncertainty and task demands shape active sensing strategies in mice
Mice flexibly adjust active sensing strategies in response to uncertainty and task demands.
Visual uncertainty and task demands shape active sensing strategies in mice

Skills

Python

PyTorch, scikit-learn, pandas, gymnasium

Machine Learning

Representation learning, contrastive learning, time-series modeling, latent variable models

Data Analysis

Neural data analysis (NWB, DANDI), image/signal processing, high-dimensional data visualization

Software Engineering

Git, CI/CD, Docker, package development, reproducible APIs

Programming

C++, Java, MATLAB, SQL

Neuroscience

Computational neuroscience, vision, learning and decision-making

Talks & Posters

  • Talk - EPFL SV Faculty Seminars Series 2026: Visual uncertainty and task demands shape active sensing strategies in mice.
  • Talk - Nature in Code Summer School (EPFL Education & Science Outreach): Decoding the brain: from starry skies to neural codes.
  • Poster - Swiss Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting 2025: A Unified Encoder for Modeling Neural Dynamics with Contrastive Learning (Benquet, Mirzaei, Schneider, Mathis).
  • Poster - Swiss Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting 2025: An augmented reality system to study active visual sensing in dynamically occluded environments (Benquet, Sainsbury, Cai, Fahey, Franke, Franco, Pitkow, Niell, Tolias, Mathis).
  • Poster - Neuro-X Retreat 2024: An augmented reality system to study active visual sensing in dynamically occluded environments.

Teaching

  • System Neurosciences, EPFL: teaching assistant for Master’s course (Prof. Mackenzie Mathis); course design support, journal clubs, student guidance, and exam review/proctoring.
  • Basic Neurosciences, EPFL: teaching assistant for third-year Bachelor’s course (Prof. Mackenzie Mathis, Prof. Pavan Ramdya); exercise-session support and exam review/proctoring.
  • Basic C++ and Algorithms, EPFL: teaching assistant for first-year Bachelor’s students; exercises, conceptual support, and Piazza/Zoom assistance.
  • Complex and Vectorial Analysis, EPFL: teaching assistant for second-year Bachelor’s students; exercises, conceptual support, and Piazza/Zoom assistance.
  • Thermodynamics and Relativity, EPFL: teaching assistant for first-year Bachelor’s students (Prof. Ivo Furno); exercises, mock-exam correction, and student support.

Interests

Feminism
Environment
Running

Marathon, semi-marathon, trails

Mountain sports

Hiking, skiing, climbing

Acting
Water sports

Sailing, kite-surfing, scuba-diving