Training
I study cognitive science, AI and mathematics at ENS Ulm (Cogmaster, the Master’s in Cognitive Science, M1 and M2), and AI and its industrial applications at HEC Paris.
- Computational and theoretical neuroscience
- Synaptic plasticity and Hebbian learning rules, recurrent network dynamics, population coding and information theory, latent-variable and state-space models of neural activity, reinforcement learning and the role of dopamine.
- Perception, attention and action
- Psychophysics, efficient coding of natural stimuli, auditory perception, working memory, motor control and decision-making.
- Machine learning for cognitive science
- Bayesian inference and the predictive brain, neural time-series analysis, the interplay between deep learning and cognition, grounded in inferential and causal statistics.
- Logic, linguistics and philosophy
- Formal tools from logic and linguistics, and the philosophy of cognitive science.
Research
From January to June 2026, at the CNRS (Lattice lab), I designed a new neural network architecture for deep language analysis. It is built on a new attention equation and a nested tokenization scheme for Transformers, trained and tested on the Jean Zay supercomputer.
The underlying problem is how to segment a continuous stream into meaningful units when the stream doesn’t come with its own words.
Building
Until June 2026, I was an AI Product Manager at one of France’s leading AI implementation firms, where I led the implementation team on complex AI projects for public and private organizations, including the CEA (French Atomic Energy Commission), one of France’s best-known football clubs, and companies with revenues between €100 million and €500 million.
Before that, I advised Oxya Origin on AI and product strategy (2024–2025). I also co-founded and chaired HEC IA, an association of over 300 members with a 30-person board, for which I organized conference series and advanced technical training in generative AI.
On the side, I like to reimplement things to understand them (autograd, Transformers, diffusion, LoRA), and I’m putting together a small multi-GPU server for inference.
Other projects
- Ancient Greek
- A study tool for Ancient Greek texts, with the linguistic processing done at build time.
- Russian
- Tools I built to learn Russian.
Elsewhere
I’m training as a pilot at the Aéro-Club Air France in Toussus-le-Noble, with humanitarian aviation in mind, after working as a field assistant at a humanitarian relief center in Lviv in 2022.
AI graph
More than 500 handwritten working notes on AI, connected in a graph: algorithmic concepts, neural architectures, mathematical foundations.
Contact
Write to me at francoisemgrenier@gmail.com.