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Philippe Lefèvre

Principal Investigator

Biography

  • 2019-present: Vice-President, Institute of Neuroscience, UCLouvain
  • 2018-2019: Visiting Professor (sabbatical), Queen's University, Kingston
  • 2014-2015: Vice-President, ICTEAM institute, UCLouvain
  • 2011-present: Full Professor, Biomedical Engineering, UCLouvain
  • 2010-2015: Head of the Department of Mathematical Engineering
  • 2007-2012: Chair, Program committee in Biomedical Engineering
  • 2006-2011: Professor, UCLouvain
  • 2003-2004: Visiting Scientist (sabbatical), National Eye Institute, NIH, Bethesda.
  • 1997-2006: Research Associate, FNRS.
  • 1995-1997: Postdoctoral Fellow, Lab. of Sensorimotor Res., NEI, NIH, Bethesda, USA.
  • 1993-1995: Postdoctoral Researcher, FNRS, CESAME, UCLouvain, Belgium.
  • 1992-1993: Military duty (Ardennes Chasseur Battalion, Royal Military Academy).
  • 1992: PhD in Biomedical Engineering, CESAME, UCLouvain, Belgium.
  • 1990-1991: PhD student, Dept. Biomedical Eng., McGill University, Canada.
  • 1983-1988: Electrical Engineer, UCLouvain, Belgium.

Recent Events

  • Mini-symposium on “Natural and artificial tactile feedback for dexterous manipulation” and public defense PhD thesis Félicien Schiltz on “Fingerpad mechanics and grip force adaptation to friction during object manipulation”. Friday April 1st 2022, Brussels. click here
  • Public defense PhD thesis Antoine De Comité: “Behavioral studies of dynamical control policies underlying human reaching movements”. Thursday February 10th 2022 @ 16h30, LLN.
  • Public defense PhD thesis Laurent Opsomer: “Short- and long-term adaptation of grip dynamics and arm kinematics to novel gravito-inertial environments”. Thursday September 30th 2021 @ 16h15, Barb 93, LLN. click here
  • Seminar by Fabrice Sarlegna on “Sensorimotor control of movement, posture and force in Human: Insights from deafferented patients’ strategies”. Thursday September 30th 2021 @ 14h30, auditoire Euler, LLN. click here
  • Conference by Stephen Redmond (University College Dublin): “Design of tactile sensors for robotic and prosthetic grippers inspired by human touch”. January 9th 2020 at 12:00, Maisin auditorium, UCLouvain, Brussels. click here
  • Symposium in honour of Jean-Louis Thonnard. September 20th 2019, Gerty Cory auditorium, UCLouvain, Brussels. click here

Past Events: click here

Research Interests

  • Interaction between vision and the neural control of movement.
  • Modeling of the oculomotor and motor systems.
  • Experimental and clinical study of eye and head movements.
  • Eye-Hand coordination.
  • Biomechanics of finger-object interaction.

Research Projects

GRIP

  • Perception and action in complex dynamic environments.
  • Experimental and theoretical study of the interaction between saccades and smooth pursuit eye movements.
  • The role of prediction and anticipation in smooth pursuit and saccade programming.
  • Bimanual coordination in motor control.
  • The interaction between haptic and visual information in eye-hand coordination.
  • The role of finger pad mechanics in tactile perception and dexterous object manipulation.
  • Eye movements in patients (amblyopia, Duane, Dementia ...).
  • Eye movements in cerebral palsied and premature children (JED).
  • Influence of micro-gravity on dexterous manipulation (ESA): https://youtu.be/_783SofVVs8
  • Micro-gravity and object manipulation: a scientific adventure (French TV show “Matière Grise”).

Teaching: Biomedical Engineering

Bachelor
  • LGBIO 1112 – Introduction au Génie Biomédical
  • LEPL 1506 – Projet 4 (en Génie Biomédical)
Master
  • LGBIO 2060 – Modelling of Biological Systems
  • LGBIO 2110 – Introduction to Clinical Engineering
  • LGBIO 2114 – Artificial Organs and Rehabilitation
  • LGBIO 2220 – Industrial project in Biomedical Engineering

People

  • Alexandre J.F. Coimbra obtained his PhD in 1999. He is currently working at Merck & Co. (West Point, PA).
  • Sophie de Brower obtained her PhD in 2001. She is currently working for Socar Research, a clinical research company.
  • Gunnar Blohm obtained his PhD in 2004. He obtained a Marie Curie Fellowship and did a Postdoc at York University with Doug Crawford. He is currently Professor at Queen's University (Kingston, Canada).
  • Renaud Ronsse obtained his PhD in 2007. He did a first postdoc in the lab of Stephan Swinnen (KULeuven, Belgium) and a second postdoc in the lab of Auke Ijspeert (Biorobotics Lab., EPFL). Renaud is now Associate Professor at UCLouvain (iMMC) since 2011.
  • Olivier White obtained his PhD in 2007. He did a postdoc in the lab of Jörn Diedrichsen (Bangor, UK). He worked for the European Science Foundation (ESF) and is now Associate Professor at the Université de Bourgogne (Dijon).
  • Jean-Jacques Orban de Xivry obtained his PhD in 2007. He did a postdoc in the lab of Reza Shadmehr (JHU, USA) and then obtained a fellowship from IRSIB ("Brains Back to Brussels" program) in my lab. He is now Associate Professor at KULeuven (since 2014).
  • Demet Yuksel obtained her PhD in 2009. She is currently the head of the strabology unit at St Luc Hospital and professor (UCLouvain, Belgium).
  • Frédéric Crevecoeur obtained his PhD in 2010. He did a postdoc in the lab of Steve Scott (Queen's University, Kingston, Canada). He is now Research Associate (FNRS) and Assistant Professor at UCLouvain (ICTEAM/INMA and IoNS/COSY) since 2017.
  • Thibaut André obtained his PhD in 2010. He worked for Arsalis (a spin-off of UCLouvain) and is currently working for Thales Alenia Space.
  • Pierre Daye obtained his PhD in 2010. He did a postdoc at the National Eye Institute and a second postdoc in Paris. He then worked as a research expert for IBA. He created a start-up in 2020 (pcube-lab).
  • Jeremy Badler obtained his PhD in 2011. He is currently Lab Manager at Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (Tuebingen).
  • Guillaume Leclercq obtained his PhD in 2013. He is currently working for N'Side company.
  • Sébastien Coppe obtained his PhD in 2012. He is currently working for N'Side company.
  • Goedele Van Belle did a Post Doc in 2009–2014 (co-supervision: Dr Bruno Rossion, Chargée de recherches FNRS, UCLouvain).
  • Benoit Delhaye obtained his PhD in 2014. He did a postdoc with Sliman Bensmaia (Univ. Chicago). He is now Research Associate (FNRS) and Assistant Professor at UCLouvain (ICTEAM/INMA and IoNS/COSY) since 2023.
  • Caroline Ego obtained her PhD in 2015. She is currently working as a biostatistician for GSK.
  • Thibault Giard obtained his PhD in 2016.
  • Vincent Théate worked as an engineer from 2009 to 2016 to prepare the GRIP experiment funded by ESA (launched to the ISS in 2016). He is currently project manager for Thales Alenia Space.
  • Allan Barrea obtained his PhD in 2017 and is currently working for Gevers (IP).
  • David Cordova obtained his PhD in 2017. He is currently doing a postdoc with Stephen Redmond at Trinity College, Dublin.
  • Nicolas Deravet obtained his PhD in 2019.
  • Irene Kuling did a 15-month postdoc in my group in 2017–2018 (Rubicon grant from NWO, The Netherlands). She is currently Assistant Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology.
  • James Mathew did a postdoc in my group from 2018 to 2021.
  • Laurent Opsomer obtained his PhD in 2021. He is currently holding a postdoctoral position in my group (GRIP project).
  • Ghady El Khoury obtained his PhD in 2021. He is now an orthopedic surgeon at Chirec Hospital (Brussels).
  • Antoine De Comité obtained his PhD on February 10th, 2022. He is currently a K. Lisa Yang ICoN postdoc fellow at MIT.
  • Félicien Schiltz obtained his PhD in 2022.
  • Coraline Hemptinne obtained her PhD in 2022. She is currently an ophthalmologist at St Luc Hospital and Professor at UCLouvain.
  • Lise Colmant started her PhD in 2020. Simon Vandergooten and Donatien Doumont started their PhD in 2021. Astrid Doyen started her PhD in 2022. Louis Lovat started his PhD in 2024 and Amir Mohammadi will start his PhD in 2025.

Philippe's publications:


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Office: Euler a.222

Phone: +32 10 47 23 82

e-mail: philippe.lefevre@uclouvain.be

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