Jean-Baptiste Himbert
PhD researcher in machine learning and molecular dynamics.
I am a doctoral researcher in applied mathematics at École des Ponts, advised by Tony Lelièvre and Gabriel Stoltz. I am part of CERMICS and the Inria MATHERIALS team.
My research lies at the intersection of machine learning and the physical sciences. I currently work on learning low-dimensional representations of molecular dynamics, with a particular focus on spectral representation for enhanced sampling. More broadly, I am interested in representation learning for physical systems, multiscale methods, and machine learning for atomistic simulation and materials science.
Research
PhD · École des Ponts / Inria · 2025–present
Learning slow collective variables for molecular dynamics
I am interested in finding the best way to represent a molecular system to facilitate enhanced sampling. One way to do that uses spectral methods to identify slow modes that drive metastability.
Topics: molecular dynamics · metastability · representation learning · enhanced sampling
Current work: reparametrization of slow modes for collective-variable discovery — manuscript in preparation.
Read moreENS Ulm · Research internship · 2024
Scattering transforms for physical systems
At ENS, I developped an efficient and interpretable diffusion generative model using scattering-spectra models and applied the framework to generate synthetic Lagrangian turbulence trajectories.
Topics: scattering transforms · wavelets · turbulence · scientific machine learning
Read moreFlatiron Institute · Research internship · 2024
Foveated multiscale tokenization for vision transformers
At the Flatiron Institute, I compared tokenization schemes for astrophysical images and developed a foveated multiscale tokenizer computed efficiently using the discrete wavelet transform.
Topics: vision transformers · wavelets · multiscale tokenization · generative modelling
Read moreAbout
Before my PhD, I studied applied mathematics at École Polytechnique and in the MVA master’s programme, and completed an MBA at the Collège des Ingénieurs. I also completed various research and professional internships alongside my studies.
My PhD is funded by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition.