Learning the syntax of plant assemblages
Leblanc, C., Bonnet, P., Servajean, M., Thuiller, W., Chytrý, M., Aćić, S., ... & Joly, A. (2025). Learning the syntax of plant assemblages.
CV
Education
- Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence and Biodiversity, University of Montpellier, 2022-2025 (expected)
- Master’s degree in Data Science, Polytechnic Institute of Paris, 2021-2022
- Exchange program in Mathematics, University of California Riverside, Fall 2019
- Engineer’s degree in AI, LDV Graduate School of Engineering, 2017-2022
- Manager’s degree in Digital Marketing, LDV Management School, 2017-2022
Work experience
- April 2022 - October 2022: Data Scientist
- Inria
- Duties included: working on species distribution modeling, writing a Working Note and a bibliography, participating in a competition, defining new state-of-the-art methods
- Supervisor: Alexis Joly
- April 2021 - September 2021: Data Analyst
- Vivendi
- Duties included: extracting raw data using web scrapping, correcting corrupted data with machine learning algorithms, performing analysis, preparing reports by creating dashboards
- Supervisor: Anne Dery
- September 2020 - April 2021: Data Science Researcher
- DeVinci Research Center
- Duties included: writing a scientific paper on my use of machine and deep learning techniques (e.g., NLP, OCR, object detection) and algorithms (e.g., k-NN, SVM, gradient boosting)
- Supervisor: Christophe Rodrigues
Skills
- Programming languages
- Python
- R
- Java
- Artificial intelligence
- Machine Learning
- Deep Learning
- Computer vision
- Natural Language Processing
- Transformer
- Biodiversity and conservation
- Community Ecology
- Macroecology and Biogeography
- Species Interactions
- Habitat Mapping
- Citizen Science and Remote Sensing
- Data
- Manipulation
- Analysis
- Visualization
- Mathematics
- Algebra
- Calculus
- Probability and Statistics
- Discrete Mathematics
- Optimization
Main publications (click here for the complete list)
Mapping biodiversity at very-high resolution in Europe
Leblanc, C., Picek, L., Palard, R., Deneu, B., Servajean, M., Bonnet, P., & Joly, A. (2025). Mapping biodiversity at very-high resolution in Europe. In Proceedings of the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference (pp. 2349-2358).
Fully automatic extraction of morphological traits from the Web: utopia or reality?
Marcos, D., van de Vlasakker, R., Athanasiadis, I. N., Bonnet, P., Goëau, H., Joly, A., ... & Panousis, K. P. (2024). Fully automatic extraction of morphological traits from the web: Utopia or reality?. Applications in Plant Sciences, e70005.
GeoPlant: Spatial Plant Species Prediction Dataset
Picek, L., Botella, C., Servajean, M., Leblanc, C., Palard, R., Larcher, T., ... & Joly, A. (2024, December). GeoPlant: Spatial Plant Species Prediction Dataset. In NEURIPS 2024.
A deep-learning framework for enhancing habitat identification based on species composition
Leblanc, C., Bonnet, P., Servajean, M., Chytrý, M., Aćić, S., Argagnon, O., ... & Joly, A. (2024). A deep‐learning framework for enhancing habitat identification based on species composition. Applied Vegetation Science, 27(3), e12802.
Species Distribution Modeling based on aerial images and environmental features with Convolutional Neural Networks
Leblanc, C., Joly, A., Lorieul, T., Servajean, M., & Bonnet, P. (2022, September). Species Distribution Modeling based on aerial images and environmental features with Convolutional Neural Networks. In CLEF (Working Notes) (pp. 2123-2150).
Main talks (click here for the other talks)
LifeCLEF 2025 Teaser: Challenges on Species Presence Prediction and Identification, and Individual Animal Identification
Conference at ECIR 2025, Lucca, Italy
GeoPl@ntNet: A Remote Sensing-Based Deep Learning Workflow for Biodiversity Mapping and Monitoring
Conference at BioSpace25, Rome, Italy
GeoPl@ntNet: A Deep Learning Workflow for Mapping European Plant Species and Habitats at Very-High Resolution
Meeting at BES 2024, Liverpool, United Kingdom
GeoPl@ntBERT: modelling plant species assemblages and producing high-resolution maps of habitat types with large language models
Congress at IBC 2024, Madrid, Spain
Pl@ntBERT: leveraging large language models to enhance vegetation classification through species composition analysis
Congress at ECCB 2024, Bologna, Italy
LifeCLEF 2024 teaser: Species Identification and Prediction Challenges
Conference at ECIR 2024, Glasgow, United Kingdom
Main teachings (click here for the other teachings)
Awards
- Most deserving student - Mayor of Paris
- Highest Honors - Engineering School
- Excellent student - Research university
- Best monitoring and modelling team - B-Cubed Hackathon
- Best project (for “Talking glove”) - Veolia
- Multiple data science competition 1st places - Kaggle
- Winner of an AI Connect 4 tournament - Engineering School
Professional development
- DeepLearn 2024 (Summer school)
- Statlearn 2023 (Conference)
- Machine Learning for Life Sciences (Conference)
- Deep Learning (Course)
- Deep Learning Specialization (MOOC)
- Data Science Specialization (MOOC)
- Research Ethics (MOOC)
- Research integrity in scientific professions (MOOC)
- Unlock Your English - Level 1 (MOOC)
- Unlock Your English - Level 2 (MOOC)
Volunteer experience
- Private teacher (Several companies and individuals, Paris and Montpellier, part-time for 8 years since 2017)
- Food distribution employee (Linkee, Montpellier, part-time for 1 year since 2024)
- Employee in a community grocery store (The Salvation Army, Paris, full-time for 1 month in 2018)
Languages
- French: Native
- English: Fluent
- German: Advanced
- Italian: Intermediate
- Spanish: Basic
Interests
- Boxing (first fun fact: I never lost a game against Muhammad Ali)
- Chess (second fun fact: I’m also undefeated against Garry Kasparov)
- Cinema (the more famous the movie is, the more I will pretend that I don’t like it)
- Piano (I need to learn the 18th variation of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op.43, to impress my girlfriend)
- Plants (I like them but I’m not sure they like me… Working on it!)