Alexander Mathis is an Austrian mathematician, computational neuroscientist and software developer. He is currently an assistant professor at the

École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (, EPFL) is a public university, public research university in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded in 1969 with the mission to "train talented engineers in Switzerland". Like its sister institution E ...

(EPFL) in Switzerland. His research interest focus on research at the intersection of

computational neuroscience Computational neuroscience (also known as theoretical neuroscience or mathematical neuroscience) is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematics, computer science, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to understand th ...

and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

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Education

Mathis studied mathematics,

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

and

theory of science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, a ...

at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany. His interest in computing and

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...

led him to pursue a PhD in

at the Graduate School for Systemic Neuroscience under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Herz at the department of neurobiology at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. During his PhD work, he studied optimal coding approaches to reveal the properties of

grid cell A grid cell is a type of neuron within the entorhinal cortex that fires at regular intervals as an animal navigates an open area, allowing it to understand its position in space by storing and integrating information about location, distance, an ...

s and how distributed population activity readout can be implemented in plausible bio-physical models. The predictions of this theory were confirmed in rats by the Moser laboratory and artificial systems optimized for navigation by DeepMind. He spent an exchange year at the

Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona (; Spanish: ; ; UAB) is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. , the university consists of 57 departments in the experimental, lif ...

in Spain.

Career and research

After completing his PhD, Mathis went in 2013 as a postdoctoral fellow to work under the mentor-ship of Prof. Venkatesh N. Murthy at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. In addition, in 2015, he joined the research group of Prof. Matthias Bethge at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

and the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

in Germany. His postdoctoral research positions were funded by a DFG postdoctoral fellowship and a Marie-Curie fellowship. Mathis conducted research in odor-guided

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the motion, movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navig ...

social behavior Social behavior is behavior among two or more organisms within the same species, it encompasses any behavior in which one member affects another. Social behavior can be seen as similar to an exchange of goods, with the expectation that when you ...

s, motor learning, and the

cocktail party problem The cocktail party effect refers to a phenomenon wherein the brain focuses a person's attention on a particular stimulus, usually auditory. This focus excludes a range of other stimuli from conscious awareness, as when a partygoer follows a singl ...

. He employed

deep learning Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration from biological neuroscience a ...

methods and experimentally testable

computational model A computational model uses computer programs to simulate and study complex systems using an algorithmic or mechanistic approach and is widely used in a diverse range of fields spanning from physics, engineering, chemistry and biology to economics ...

s to study

animal behavior Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behaviour of non-human animals. It has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th century, including Charle ...

and neural data. He has developed tools such as DeepLabCut and DeepDraw to accurately measure animal and human behavior. He is one of the initiators and developers of the open-source research tool DeepLabCut with his spouse

Mackenzie Weygandt Mathis Mackenzie W. Mathis, is an American neuroscientist and principal investigator at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Her lab investigates adaptive mechanisms in biological and artificial intelligence to inform adaptive AI systems and ...

that estimates animal postures via computer vision and machine learning. Mathis has also created models and theories on adaptive behavior, in particular on

motor control Motor control is the regulation of movements in organisms that possess a nervous system. Motor control includes conscious voluntary movements, subconscious muscle memory and involuntary reflexes, as well as instinctual taxes. To control ...

and sensorimotor transformations. Several publications appeared during this research period, including the highly cited paper "DeepLabCut: markerless pose estimation of user-defined body parts with deep learning" by Mathis et al. published in 2018 in

Nature Neuroscience ''Nature Neuroscience'' is a monthly scientific journal published by Nature Publishing Group. Its focus is original research papers relating specifically to neuroscience and was established in May 1998. The chief editor is Shari Wiseman. According ...

. In August 2020, he moved as an assistant professor to the

(EPFL) in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

where he started his own research laboratory "the Mathis Group", dedicated to research at the intersection of

and

. The Mathis Group is committed to enhancing machine learning tools for animal behavior analysis and to developing of neural network models of sensorimotor representation. His research was featured in

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

, and

Quanta Magazine ''Quanta Magazine'' is an editorially independent online publication of the Simons Foundation covering developments in physics, mathematics, biology and computer science. History ''Quanta Magazine'' was initially launched as ''Simons Science ...

Awards and grants

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organization established and owned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with an investment of 99 percent of the couple's wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifetim ...

(CZI) awarded funding for Mathis' open source project DeepLabCut. Mathis further was awarded with a postdoctoral fellowship by the

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bu ...

and a

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) is a set of major research fellowships created by the European Union/European Commission to support research in the European Research Area (ERA). The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions are among Europe's most co ...

fellowship by the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

Publications

Personal life

Mathis is married to fellow neuroscientist Prof. Dr.

, who is also the developer of DeepLabCut and an assistant professor at the

(EPFL).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathis, Alexander Austrian neuroscientists Academic staff of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Harvard University alumni University of Tübingen alumni Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people