CV

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Education

• Ph.D in Computer Science, University of Toulouse, 2025 (expected)
• Master in Artificial Intelligence, Pattern Recognition and Robotics (with honors), 2021
• Bachelor in Computer Science - Project Management (with honors), 2019

Work experience

• August 2025: Postdoctoral Researcher
  • York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
  • Topics: Neural Decoding, Explainability, E/I modeling, Autism
  • Advisor: Kohitij Kar
• May 2025: Research Assistant
  • York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
  • Topics: Neural Decoding, Explainability
  • Advisor: Kohitij Kar
• November 2024 - February 2025: Visiting Student
  • York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
  • Topics: Shared Temporal Variance
  • Advisor: Kohitij Kar
• May 2023 - May 2025: Visiting Student
  • Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
  • Topics: Complex-valued Neural Networs, Neural Oscillations, Binding by Sychrony
  • Advisors: Thomas Serre, Rufin Van Rullen
• January 2022 - May 2023: Research Engineer
  • CerCo - CNRS, Toulouse, France
  • Topics: Complex-valued Neural Networs, Neural Oscillations, Binding by Sychrony
  • Advisors: Thomas Serre, Rufin Van Rullen
• March 2021: M2 Internship
  • Brown university, Providence, RI, USA
  • Topics: Neural ODEs
  • Advisor: Thomas Serre
• June 2020: M1 Internship
  • LAAS - CNRS, Toulouse, France
  • Topics: Constraint Programming, Binary Neural Networks
  • Advisor: Mohamed Siala

Awards and Fellowship

• June 2025: Connected Minds Postdoctoral Fellowship (CFREF, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada)
• May 2025: Travel Award (Vision Science Society (VSS) Conference)
• November 2024 - February 2025: VISTA Visiting Trainee Award (CFREF, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada)
• August 2024: The Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM) Summer Course (Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, USA)
• September 2020 - August 2021: Master’s Degree Excellence Scholarship (ANITI, Toulouse, France)

Supervised Students

• Undergraduate Students:
  • Lucas Lieberman (M): Brown University, From March to May 2025
  • Anna Gouédard (F): INP Bordeaux, France, From May to August 2024
  • Marcus Wong (M): Shenoy Undergraduated, SURFiN, From September 2025 to August 2026
  • Stephanie Habach (F): Shenoy Undergraduated, SURFiN, From September 2025 to August 2026

Publications

MAPS: Masked Attribution-based Probing of Strategies — A computational framework to align human and model explanations

Muzellec, S., Alghetaa, Y. K., Kornblith, S., & Kar, K. (2025). MAPS: Masked Attribution-based Probing of Strategies — A computational framework to align human and model explanations. arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.12141

Distinct contributions of memorability and object recognition to the representational goals of the macaque inferior temporal cortex

Ziaee, S.*, Ahuja, R.*, Muzellec, S., Fide, E., Rosenbaum, S. R., & Kar, K. (2025). Distinct contributions of memorability and object recognition to the representational goals of the macaque inferior temporal cortex. bioRxiv, 2025.10. 06.680822

Tracking objects that change in appearance with phase synchrony

Muzellec, S.*, Linsley, D.*, Ashok, A. K., Mingolla, E., Malik, G., VanRullen, R., Serre, T. (2024). Tracking objects that change in appearance with phase synchrony. The 3rd Cold Spring Harbor conference on From Neuroscience to Artificially Intelligent Systems (NAISys).

Reverse Predictivity: Going Beyond One-Way Mapping to Compare Artificial Neural Network Models and Brains

Muzellec, S. & Kar, K. (2025). Reverse Predictivity: Going Beyond One-Way Mapping to Compare Artificial Neural Network Models and Brains. bioRxiv, 2025.08. 08.669382

Beyond One-Way Mapping: Linking Model-Brain Asymmetry to Behavioral Predictions in Visual Object Recognition

Muzellec, S. & Kar, K. (2025). Beyond One-Way Mapping: Linking Model-Brain Asymmetry to Behavioral Predictions in Visual Object Recognition. The 48th Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society.

GASPnet: Global Agreement to Synchronize Phases

Alamia, A.*, Muzellec, S.*, Serre, T., VanRullen, R. (2025). GASPnet: Global Agreement to Synchronize Phases. arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.16674

In Sync with the Brain: Modeling Visual Binding through Neural Synchrony

Muzellec, S. (2025). In Sync with the Brain : Modeling Visual Binding through Neural Synchrony.Neuroscience. Université de Toulouse.

Beyond One-Way Mapping: Linking Model-Brain Asymmetry to Behavioral Predictions in Visual Object Recognition

Muzellec, S. & Kar, K. (2025). Beyond One-Way Mapping: Linking Model-Brain Asymmetry to Behavioral Predictions in Visual Object Recognition. Journal of Vision (VSS) 25 (9), 2808-2808

Beyond One-Way Mapping: Linking Model-Brain Asymmetry to Behavioral Predictions in Visual Object Recognition

Muzellec, S. & Kar, K. (2025). Beyond One-Way Mapping: Linking Model-Brain Asymmetry to Behavioral Predictions in Visual Object Recognition. NETI Workshop.

Enhancing deep neural networks through complex-valued representations and Kuramoto synchronization dynamics

Muzellec, S., Alamia, A., Serre, T., VanRullen, R. (2025). Enhancing deep neural networks through complex-valued representations and Kuramoto synchronization dynamics. Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR).

Latent Representation Matters: Human-like Sketches in One-shot Drawing Tasks

Boutin, V., Mukherji, R., Agrawal, A., Muzellec, S., Fel, T., Serre, T., VanRullen, R. (2024). Latent Representation Matters: Human-like Sketches in One-shot Drawing Tasks. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) 37, 96282-96324

Tracking objects that change in appearance with phase synchrony

Muzellec, S.*, Linsley, D.*, Ashok, A. K., Mingolla, E., Malik, G., VanRullen, R., Serre, T. (2024). Tracking objects that change in appearance with phase synchrony. International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR).

Tracking objects that change in appearance with phase synchrony

Muzellec, S.*, Linsley, D.*, Ashok, A. K., VanRullen, R., Serre, T. (2024). Tracking objects that change in appearance with phase synchrony. Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN).

Benefits of synchrony: Improving deep neural networks using complex values and Kuramoto synchronization

Muzellec, S., Alamia, A., Serre, T., VanRullen, R. (2023). Benefits of synchrony: Improving deep neural networks using complex values and Kuramoto synchronization. Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN).

Saliency strikes back: How filtering out high frequencies improves white-box explanations

Muzellec, S., Fel, T., Boutin, V., Andeol, L., VanRullen, R., Serre, T. (2023). Saliency strikes back: How filtering out high frequencies improves white-box explanations. International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML).

Accurate implementation of computational neuroscience models through neural ODEs

Muzellec, S., Chalvidal, M., Serre, T., VanRullen, R. (2022). Accurate implementation of computational neuroscience models through neural ODEs. Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN).

Talks

Thesis Defense

July 15, 2025

Talk at University of Toulouse, CerCo - CNRS, Toulouse, France

VSS Talk on Reverse Predictivity

June 18, 2025

Talk at Vision Science Society (VSS) Conference, TradeWinds Island Resorts, St. Pete Beach, Florida, USA

ICLR Presentation on FeatureTracker

April 24, 2025

Talk at International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), Singapore EXPO

AI Tasting Seminar

September 07, 2023

Talk at Torus AI, Toulouse, France

CCN 2022 Contributed Talk on Neural ODEs

August 28, 2022

Talk at Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN), San Francisco, CA, USA

Teaching

Service and leadership

• Journals: Communications biology (2025)

• Official Reviewer:
  • ICLR 2025
• External Reviewer:
  • NeurIPS 2023
  • NeurIPS 2024
• Emergency Reviewer:
  • NeurIPS 2025
  • ICLR 2026