PEOPLE

Justine Reverdy

Justine Reverdy is a Starting Researcher at Inria working on the Interpersonality Project. Her current research interests include conversational alignment, personality-driven interaction modeling, and the development of adaptive embodied conversational agents. She earned her Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics from Trinity College Dublin, as part of the ADAPT Centre, where her research focused on quantifying mutual understanding in multiparty task-oriented interactions. She subsequently worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Sigmedia Lab, leading the design and collection of a multimodal corpus to investigate student engagement and interpersonal factors in video-conferencing contexts. Outside work she enjoys hiking in the mountains, baking, and doing watercolors.

Erinda Morina

Erinda Morina, is a cognitive neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher at Inria. She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental and Brain Sciences from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where her work examined attention, multisensory integration and emotion perception across development, at both behavioural and neural levels using EEG.

At ArticuLab here at Inria, she is currently diving into a hyperscanning project using fNIRS to investigate interbrain synchrony and rapport during collaborative social interactions. Her interests include understanding how nonverbal and emotional aspects of collaborative interactions shape connection, rapport, and shared learning across development, with the goal of informing approaches that enhance effective learning through human-agent interactions.

Outside the lab, you can likely find her immersing herself in art and culture, spending time in nature, experimenting with flavours, and exploring new places with her family and dog.

Sophie Etling

Sophie graduated from Sorbonne University with a degree in Economics, followed by a Master’s in Education from Paris-Saclay. After spending seven years teaching in primary schools, she worked for a year in various fields for a start-up. Now, she coordinates a research team, manages recruitment, and conducts experiments using fNIRS technology. Sophie is eager to develop her skills in the field of research and looks forward to applying her teaching experience to future experiments with children. Outside of work, she enjoys scuba diving, boxing, and theater.

Oussama Silem

Oussama is a Research Engineer at INRIA, working on the development of Articulab’s next conversational agent, Son-of-Sara. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science from the Higher National School of Computer Science of Algiers, where he specialized in Computer Systems. Oussama has experience working with large language models, conversational systems, and EEG data analysis. He is passionate about bridging artificial intelligence with fields such as psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience to gain deeper insights into human language. In his free time, Oussama enjoys running, listening to music, and playing video games.

Reem Al Najjar

Reem is a doctoral student at INRIA and EDITE/La Sorbonne. She is working with the hyperscanning technique to explore inter-brain synchrony and behavioural features related to social interaction in children in the context of computer-mediated interactions. She holds a Master’s in Neuroscience from the American University of Beirut and a Master’s in Learning Sciences from University Paris Cité. She is passionate about how neuroscience can inform educational practices, particularly the neural mechanisms that underpin learning processes. In her spare time, she enjoys swimming, climbing, and spending time with her dog, Laska.

Biswesh Mohapatra

Biswesh is a doctoral student at INRIA and ENS/PSL. His research interest lies in multi-modal computational models of human conversations. He has experience working in various other fields such as Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Semantic Web, and negotiation agents. Prior to starting his PhD, he worked as a research engineer at Articulab for a year where his primary role was to re-build the entire pipeline for SARA. He completed his Masters in Computer Science from IIIT Bangalore where he interned at companies like IBM Research, Seimens Research, and also was a Google Summer of Codes scholar where he contributed to the open-source organisation “OpenStreetMaps”. Outside the lab, you can find him taking part in hiking, playing badminton and singing terribly!!

More information could be found on his website.

Marie-Salomé Nsingi Kinkela

Salomé is a former high school English teacher who made a successful transition into Natural Language Processing (NLP), bridging her linguistic expertise with a growing passion for computer science and technical skills. She recently earned a Master’s degree in NLP from Grenoble Alps University and is currently working as a research engineer at the Articulab. She is contributing to the ‘Son-of-Sara’ project, where she is developing a turn-taking module for an embodied conversational agent. This feature aims to make the agent’s interactions more fluid and natural, significantly enhancing human-machine interactions.

Outside of her professional work, she enjoys singing, experimenting with new recipes, and watching stand-up comedy.

Yassine Machta

Yassine did a Master in Data Science at ENSAE and Institut Polytechnique de Paris and joined ArticuLabo as an intern to work on the non-verbal behavior and gesture generation modules of the Son-of-Sara project. He is now a research engineer in the team! He’s particularly interested in making virtual agents more believable and expressive—whether it’s how they move, gesture, or make decisions. Outside the lab, you’ll likely find him exploring quirky indie games, or a new sport that dosen’t suit him. He also firmly believes a good shawarma can solve most research roadblocks.

Barokshana Baskaran

Barokshana is a Research Engineer at Articulab, participating in a project entitled: ‘Peer collaboration and its impact on learning’, an fNIRS hyperscanning study. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences in 2023 at Paris-Est Créteil University. She recently graduated her Master’s degree in Integrative Biology and Physiology, specializing in the Cognitive and Behavioral Neurosciences track, at Sorbonne University. With a strong attachment to her mother tongue ‘Tamil’, Barokshana is also pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Tamil Studies. This is why she enjoys writing poems, listening to music, and watching movies in Tamil.

Marius Le Chapelier

Marius is a Research Engineer working on Articulab’s new dialogue system called Son of Sara (SARA project’s sequel). This system will imply real-time processing of multimodal data streams (audio, video) gathered from the system’s interlocutor, and the generation of such streams through a new Embodied Conversational Agent developed in Unity. Marius graduated with a Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence from Sorbonne Université in 2022. He has experience with various AI subfields like reinforcement learning, deep learning, multi-agent systems and has a wide range of programming skills. In his free time, he enjoys playing any sport (especially volleyball) and is a board game enthusiast.

Olivia Lecuyer

Olivia Lecuyer is a Master’s student in Cognitive and Integrative Neurosciences at University Toulouse III, currently completing her M2 internship at Inria. She previously earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a specialization in Neuropsychology. Her interests focus on the links between cognition and technological innovation.

She is involved in a project using fNIRS to study brain-to-brain synchrony and social rapport during collaborative interactions, aiming to enhance learning through human-agent interactions.

Outside of research, she enjoys running, reading fantasy novels, listening to reggaeton music. Picture her in everyday workwear with a touch of pink.

Irene Delpozzo

Irene is currently an intern and second-year master’s student pursuing a double degree in Brain and Mind Sciences. She completed the first year of her master’s program in London and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences, with a minor in Neuroscience. Her academic background reflects a strong interdisciplinary orientation, combining perspectives from cognitive science, neuroscience, and the social sciences.
During her internship, she is involved in a research project using fNIRS hyperscanning to investigate collaborative performance in children. Her work focuses on understanding how nonverbal communication contributes to coordination and interaction during joint tasks. By integrating methods and concepts from multiple fields, this project aligns closely with her broader interest in studying social and cognitive processes through an interdisciplinary approach.
In her free time, Irene enjoys spending time outdoors, with skiing being her favorite activity. She also enjoys listening to music and watching dog reels, and is currently exploring Paris in search of the best matcha.

Alix Girard

Alix is an intern on the team, working on the hyperscanning project using fNRIS to study children’s social interaction and rapport building. She is currently completing a Master 2 in cognitive neuroscience, the Cogsup, at Paris Cité and Sorbonne Universities. Before that, she completed her third year of medical university and is going back to her medical studies next year.

Outside the lab, she likes hanging out with her friends, reading, taking dance classes, and windsurfing during the holidays.