I am an ELBE postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Systems Biology Dresden since October 2025. Before that, I was a PhD student in applied mathematics under the supervision of Patricia Reynaud-Bouret and Samuel Vaiter at Laboratoire J.A. Dieudonné, Université Côte d'Azur.

Research interests

My research focuses on the mathematical modeling of neural learning, at the interface between mathematics, machine learning and biology. During my PhD, I demonstrated rigorously that biologically-inspired neural networks can indeed learn, in order to further our understanding of the local mechanisms underlying global learning. I also established strong approximation results between cognitive models renowned for accurately modeling behavior and spiking neural models, providing evidence on how neural dynamics lead to specific behaviors.

I am currently working on a project aiming at reconstructing the functional connectivity of a neural network, where the neurons' activity is only partially observed, by employing optimization techniques.

Keywords

Spiking neural networks, Hawkes process, online learning, optimization

Publications:

S. Jaffard, S. Vaiter, A. Muzy, and P. Reynaud-Bouret, “Provable local learning rule by expert aggregation for a Hawkes network” , AISTATS 2024
M. Villet, P. Reynaud-Bouret, J. Poitreau, J. Baldi, S. Jaffard, A. James, A. Muzy, F. Sargolini, I. Bethus, "Coding dynamics of the striatal networks during learning", eNeuro, 2024

Preprints:

S. Jaffard, S. Vaiter, P. Reynaud-Bouret, “CHANI: Correlation-based Hawkes Aggregation of Neurons with bio-Inspiration”, preprint, May 2024.
S. Jaffard, G. Mezzadri, P. Reynaud-Bouret, E. Tanré, "Spiking Neural Models for Decision-Making tasks with Learning" , preprint, February 2025.

Thesis: S. Jaffard, "Spiking neural networks : learning as point processes", July 2025.

Teaching:

2023: Teaching assistant, XXVI Brazilian School of Probability , São Paulo, Brazil (Jul 30 - Aug 5)
2022-2025: Teaching assistant, Université Côte d'Azur
2021-2022: Colleuse, Lycée Henri IV

Tutorials XXVI Brazilian School of Probability:

CV:

CV.pdf

Contact: jaffard@mpi-cbg.de

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