Sylvain FONTAINE

PhD in sociology

• Title of the thesis: “The Diffusion of Artificial Intelligence into Neuroscience: A Multiscale Approach of the Genericity of a Research-Technology”,
• Supervision: Michel Dubois, Floriana Gargiulo and Paola Tubaro,
• PhD defense held on December 6, 2024 (voir la présentation du jury et le résumé de la thèse),
• Thesis available online on HAL platform.

Research interests

• Computational social science
• Complex systems
• Complex networks and social network analysis, big data
• Science studies, sociology of science, scientometrics
• Innovation studies
• Sociotechnical systems and artificial intelligence

Publications

• Fontaine, S., Gargiulo, F., Dubois, M., Tubaro, P. (2024) Epistemic integration and social segregation of AI in neuroscience. Applied Network Science 9, 8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41109-024-00618-2
• Gargiulo, F., Fontaine, S., Dubois, M., Tubaro, P. (2022) A meso-scale cartography of  the AI ecosystem. Quantitative Science Studies. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00267
• Mullick, P., Fontaine, S., Appert-Rolland, C., Olivier, A.-H., Warren, W. H., Pettré, J. (2022). Analysis of emergent patterns in crossing flows of pedestrians reveals an invariant of ‘stripe’ formation in human data. PLOS Computational Biology. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010210
• Schawe, H., Fontaine, S., Hernández, L. (2021). When network bridges foster consensus. Bounded confidence models in networked societies. Phys. Rev. Research 3, 023208. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.023208

Communications

• January 2025 : 1st Italian Conference on Computational Social Science (CS2 2025) at University of Trento, Italy. Title: “Is AI becoming really a must in science? Evidences from the diffusion of AI in neuroscience”
• September 2024: Conference on Complex Systems (CCS 2024) at University of Exeter, United Kingdom. Title: “Is AI becoming really a must in science? Evidences from the diffusion of AI in neuroscience”
• January 2024: short talks for the GEMASS lab seminar and for the doctoral seminar of CERES unit (Sorbonne University). Title: “The spreading of AI in science: between epistemic integration and division of scientific work”,
• October 2023: short talk for the “Sociology of sciences and techniques” lectures in the last year of the master degree of Contemporary Sociology (Research track) at Sorbonne University. Title: “The spreading of AI in science: between epistemic integration and division of scientific work”,
• October 2023: Conference on Complex Systems (CCS 2023) at SENAI-CIMATEC, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Title: “Is AI challenging the science ecosystem?”,
• September 2023: 3rd Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Industry, Science and Society (AI2S2) in Geneva, Switzerland. Animation of a workshop on the cartography of AI in science, and of a little experiment on the public perception of AI,
• July 2023: International Conference on Computational Social Science at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Title: “A pattern of  diffusion of artificial intelligence in science: The development of an AI scientific specialty in neuroscience”,
• June 2023: French Regional Conference on Complex Systems at Le Havre Normandie University. Title: “A pattern of  diffusion of artificial intelligence in science: The development of an AI scientific specialty in neuroscience”. Part of the FRCCS award abstract nominees,
• October 2022: SCAI PhD Workshop on Artificial Intelligence at Sorbonne University. Title: “The spreading of artificial intelligence in science: The neuroscience case”,
• June 2022 : French Regional Conference on Complex Systems at Île-de-France Complex Systems Institute:
  • “Flash talk” (5min) about “The spreading of artificial intelligence in science: The neuroscience case”,
  • 15 minutes talk about “Meso-scale composition & interdisciplinary diffusion of Artificial Intelligence” (with F. Gargiulo et P. Tubaro),
• May 2022: “Flash talk” (4min) at the thematic school Complex Networks: Theory, Methods, and Applications organized by the Lake Como School of Advanced Studies of the Fondazione Alessandro Volta (Como, Italy). Title: “A scientometric study of the diffusion of AI technologies in science: The neuroscience case”,
• March 2022: short talk for the “Sociology of sciences and techniques” lectures in the last year of the master degree of Contemporary Sociology (Research track) at Sorbonne University. Title: “Artificial intelligence, a socio-technical system”.

Teaching activities

• March-April 2024 : 3 hours lectures within the course “Données et visualisation” in the first year of the master degree of Contemporary Sociology at Sorbonne University. Lectures: initiation to techniques of text mining and knowledge representation, and tutorial with Python.
• January 26, 2024 : 3 hours lectures within the course “Computational Social Science” in the second year of the engineering track in Data Engineering and Digital Humanities at IEP Saint-Germain-En-Laye. Lectures: theoretical introduction to social network analysis and tutorials on Gephi,
• October to November 2023: 10 hours lectures within the course “Computational Social Science” in the second-year master degree of Behavioral and Social Sciences for Public Policy at University Mohamed VI Polytechnique (Rabat, Morocco). Lectures: text mining with data extracted from social networks or scientific literature,
• January to May 2022: “Applied Social Networks” course in the first year of the master degree of Contemporary Sociology at Sorbonne University. Lectures: theoretical introduction to social network analysis and tutorials on Gephi and Python + organization of a small talks session with researchers.

Visiting

• March 2024 : visit of Sony CSL Rome in the framework of the ScientIA project (one week).

Other activities in the lab

• Co-organizer of the lab seminar for the academic years 2022-2023 and 2023-2024,
• Co-organizer of the lab doctoral day (2022 edition)

Education

• 2020-2021: Last year of the master degree of Contemporary Sociology at Sorbonne University,
• 2017-2020: Bachelor and Master degrees of Fundamental Physics within the “Magistère” track of Paris-Saclay University. Specialty of the master degree: Physics of Complex Systems,
• 2015-2017: University preparatory class “Reinforced Scientific Studies” (intensive track), University of Nantes.