Throughout my academic career, I have been fascinated by the intersection of basic sciences and humanities. In high school, I built a trebuchet for an interdisciplinary course in Physics and History, and also inventoried the archival material of the Belle époque hotel Caux-Palace and Charlie Chaplin’s personal archive in Montreux. I studied Mathematics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), where I focused on Graph Theory and Geometry and wrote my Master’s thesis on Hyperbolic Geometry and quaternions.
After completing my Master’s degree, I felt drawn to the humanities and began studying centrality measures and social network analysis for my PhD at the University of Lausanne (UNIL). As a teaching assistant, I discovered various aspects of applied mathematics and conducted exploratory analyses for the Pegasus Data Project. After defending my thesis on “Character Networks and Centrality”, I became a post-doctoral researcher and project manager at the Digital Humanities Laboratory (DHLAB) of EPFL.
In 2016, I became a junior lecturer at UNIL and continued my research on character networks while also focusing on game studies. Together with colleagues, I founded the UNIL GameLab research group on video games. I also served as the coordinator of the doctoral program in digital studies and a collaborator of the scientific mediation service of UNIL.
Currently, as an assistant professor in game studies at UNIL, my research interests include research-creation, digital humanities, representing the quantitative in games, educational sciences, platform studies, media archaeology, and history and archival science. I collaborate with various institutions on exhibitions and events related to video games and serve on several juries for interactive media and video game support. In the past, my research interests have involved character network analysis, social network analysis, data visualization, and historical newspapers, all approached with methods from mathematics and computer science.
Education
PhD
Character Networks and Centrality. Directed by Henri Volken and Frédéric Kaplan. Committee: Dominique Joye, Jean-Gabriel Ganascia, Matthew L. Jockers. UNIL, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. Defended on Dec. 12, 2014. [PDF]
MSc
Géométrie de l’espace hyperbolique dans le modèle du demi-espace supérieur. Directed by Klaus-Dieter Semmler. Expert: Bruno Colbois. EPFL, Section de mathématiques, IGAT – Chaire de géométrie. Defended on Sep. 11, 2007.
College
Gymnase de Burier (La Tour-de-Peilz, Vaud), 1998–2001.
Option spécifique : Physique et application des mathématiques.
Option complémentaire : Histoire.
Travail de maturité sur le siège de Montségur (1243-1244) et les propriétés physiques du trébuchet.
Courses and MOOCs followed (after MSc)
Superviser une thèse à l’UNIL, Graduate Campus UNIL. April 2022.
Web Technologies, a course given by Prof. Christoph Meinel. 180/180 points. July 2015. [Record]
2nd Digital Humanities Fall School in Venice. Oct. 6-10, 2015. [Site]
1st Digital Humanities Fall School in Venice. Oct. 6-11, 2014. [Site] [Blogpost]
Digital Humanities Summer School, Bern, July 26-29, 2013. [Site]
École d’été «Étudier les réseaux sociaux», Porquerolles. Sep. 10-14, 2012. [Ref]
Exploring Biological Networks (CUSO Doctoral School, 1 ECTS), Villars, Summer 2010.
Game Theory and Computer Science (CUSO Doctoral School), Champéry, Winter 2010.
Programme d’initiation à l’enseignement universitaire (1 ECTS), Lausanne, 3 April, 2009.