About me

I’m Léo Varnet, a CNRS researcher at École Normale Supérieure de Paris, currently working in the Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs. My research focuses on hearing and speech, with a particular emphasis on the interface between the two domains. I’m passionate about developing advanced statistical and signal processing techniques to investigate various aspects of auditory perception.

At the moment, my research is centered around two primary projects. The first project (ACI) is focused on investigating the cognitive mechanisms that underlie the conversion of speech sounds into phonemic percepts. The second project (MFB) studies the perception of amplitude and frequency modulations by the auditory system in humans, with a particular interest in understanding the effects of hearing loss.

Through my research, I aim to make critical contributions to our understanding of auditory perception and cognition.

 

Je suis Chargé de Recherche au CNRS, affilié au Laboratoire des Système Perceptifs de l’École Normale Supérieure de Paris. Mes recherches portent sur l’audition humaine et le langage, avec un accent particulier sur l’interface entre ces deux domaines. Je m’intéresse notamment au développement de techniques statistiques et de traitement de signal pour étudier divers aspects de la perception auditive.

Actuellement, mes recherches s’articulent autour de deux projets principaux. Le premier projet (ACI) est axé sur l’étude des mécanismes cognitifs qui sous-tendent la conversion des sons de la parole en percepts phonémiques. Le second projet (MFB) étudie la perception des modulations d’amplitude et de fréquence par le système auditif chez l’homme, avec un intérêt particulier pour la compréhension des effets des pertes auditives.

Grâce à mes recherches, j’espère apporter des contributions essentielles à notre compréhension de la perception auditive et de la cognition humaine.

Contact

Email : leo.varnet [at] ens.psl.eu

LinkedIn, ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Twitter, Wikipédia, HAL, ORCID, Publons, Mastodon

CV

Current position:

Chargé de Recherche CNRS (section 34, Linguistics) at the Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs (UMR 8248), ENS-PSL

Education:

2012 – 2015    PhD in Cognitive Sciences (funded by the Neurosciences and Cognition Doctoral School) at the Institut des Sciences Cognitives (Lyon). Thesis title: “Identification of acoustic cues used in degraded speech comprehension”. Supervisors: M. Hoen & F. Meunier.
2010 – 2011    Master’s Degree in Cognitive Science in Grenoble (Grenoble INP, Joseph Fourier University)
2008 – 2011    Signal Processing Engineer: student in the engineer school Phelma, Grenoble INP, specialization in « Signal and Image Processing, Communication Systems, Multimedia»
2006 – 2008    Preparatory classes for admission to the French « Grandes Ecoles », in mathematics and physics
2006                    Baccalauréat S (High School Diploma in Sciences)

Previous positions:

2018 – 2019    Honorary Researcher at the University College of London, department SHaPS. Collaboration with S. Rosen and V. Hazan.
2016 – 2018    Postdoctoral fellow at ENS Paris under the supervision of C. Lorenzi (Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs). Collaboration with Starkey Hearing Technologies.
2015 – 2016    Postdoctoral fellow at ENS Paris under the supervision of C. Lorenzi (Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs). Collaboration with the Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception (Paris).
2012                    One-year CNRS engineer position at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Brain Dynamics and Cognition Team (dir. O. Bertrand)
2011                    6-month end-of-studies internship in the SpiN Project Team in Lyon (dir. M. Hoen and F. Meunier)
2010                    3-month internship at GIPSA-lab in Grenoble (dir. M. Congedo and B. Rivet)

Teaching:

2021 – …             Introduction to psycholinguistics (1h) as part of the PSL week « Audition »
2019 – …            Teaching at Le Mans Université: Perception et psychoacoustique (level: M2)
2018 – 2019    Teacher assistant in charge of lab tutorials in UCL: Speech production and perception
2012 – 2015    Teacher assistant in charge of tutorials in Polytech Lyon: C++ programming, statistics, bibliographic research, and speech processing

Grants:

NSCo Doctoral School, L. Varnet’s thesis scholarship « bourse de thèse du Ministère de la Recherche » (2012-2015)

Agence Nationale de la Recherche, projet fast-ACI (2021-2023)

FRAL (Agence Nationale de la Recherche & Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), projet DRhyaDS (2023-2025)

Scientific events organization:

2022                   Organizing the 2nd AMT Workshop in Paris « Introduction to auditory modelling using the AMT toolbox »
2019                   Organizing the 2-day European conference ARCHES in Paris
2018                   Organizing the “Wikipedia project for Hearing sciences: Concepts of temporal envelope and temporal fine structure”, 2-day scientific workshop in Paris

Scientific commitments:

2021 – …           Member of the « Copilbox », the experimental platform steering committee from the DEC
2021 – …            Member of the « Sélection Internationale Scientifique » jury at ENS-PSL
2020 – …            Member of the Ethics committee from Université Paris Descartes

Reviewer for international journals: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Plos One, Developmental Science, Ear and Hearing, Frontiers in Psychology

Outreaching activities and science popularization :

Publications: see here