Alexander Mathis

Mathis studied mathematics, logic and theory of science at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany.{{Cite web|title=Alexander Mathis {{!}} Campus Biotech|url=https://www.campusbiotech.ch/en/node/706|access-date=2020-06-12|website=www.campusbiotech.ch}} His interest in computing and cryptography led him to pursue a PhD in computational neuroscience at the Graduate School for Systemic Neuroscience under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Herz at the department of neurobiology at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich.{{Cite web|title=Alumni / Former lab members of Andreas Herz|url=http://www.neuro.bio.lmu.de/members/comp_neuro_herz/herz_a/alumni/index.html|access-date=2020-06-12}} During his PhD work, he studied optimal coding approaches to reveal the properties of grid cells{{Cite journal|title=Optimal Population Codes for Space: Grid Cells Outperform Place Cells|journal=Neural Computation|year=2012|volume=24|pages=2280–2317|doi=10.1162/NECO_a_00319|last1=Mathis|first1=Alexander|last2=Herz|first2=Andreas V. M.|last3=Stemmler|first3=Martin|s2cid=15755674|issue=9|pmid=22594833|url=https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15117/1/ncpaper.pdf}} and how distributed population activity readout can be implemented in plausible bio-physical models.{{Cite journal|last1=Stemmler|first1=Martin|last2=Mathis|first2=Alexander|last3=Herz|first3=Andreas V. M.|date=2015-12-01|title=Connecting multiple spatial scales to decode the population activity of grid cells|url= |journal=Science Advances|language=en|volume=1|issue=11|pages=e1500816|doi=10.1126/science.1500816|pmid=26824061|pmc=4730856|bibcode=2015SciA....1E0816S |issn=2375-2548}} The predictions of this theory were confirmed in rats by the Moser laboratory{{Cite journal|last1=Stensola|first1=Hanne|last2=Stensola|first2=Tor|last3=Solstad|first3=Trygve|last4=Frøland|first4=Kristian|last5=Moser|first5=May-Britt|last6=Moser|first6=Edvard I.|date=2012-12-05|title=The entorhinal grid map is discretized|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11649|journal=Nature|language=en|volume=492|issue=7427|pages=72–78|doi=10.1038/nature11649|pmid=23222610|bibcode=2012Natur.492...72S |s2cid=4398517|issn=1476-4687|url-access=subscription}} and artificial systems optimized for navigation by DeepMind.{{Cite web|title=Navigating with grid-like representations in artificial agents|url=https://deepmind.com/blog/article/grid-cells|access-date=2020-08-31|website=Deepmind}}

He spent an exchange year at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain.

After completing his PhD, Mathis went in 2013 as a postdoctoral fellow to work under the mentor-ship of Prof. Venkatesh N. Murthy at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University.{{Cite web|last=VN|first=Zeitungsimport|title=Unterrichten und forschen an der Elite-Uni Harvard|url=https://www.vn.at/extra/2015/02/26/unterrichten-und-forschen-an-der-elite-uni-harvard.vn|access-date=2020-06-12|website=Vorarlberger Nachrichten {{!}} VN.at|language=de}}{{Cite web|date=2016-06-11|title=People|url=https://vnmurthylab.org/people/|access-date=2020-06-12|website=MurthyLab @Harvard|language=en}} In addition, in 2015, he joined the research group of Prof. Matthias Bethge at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Tübingen and the University of Tübingen in Germany.{{Cite web|title=BETHGE LAB · People|url=http://bethgelab.org/people/|access-date=2020-06-12|website=bethgelab.org}} His postdoctoral research positions were funded by a DFG postdoctoral fellowship and a Marie-Curie fellowship.

Mathis conducted research in odor-guided navigation, social behaviors, motor learning, and the cocktail party problem.{{Cite journal|last1=Mathis|first1=Alexander|last2=Rokni|first2=Dan|last3=Kapoor|first3=Vikrant|last4=Bethge|first4=Matthias|last5=Murthy|first5=Venkatesh N.|date=2016-09-01|title=Reading Out Olfactory Receptors: Feedforward Circuits Detect Odors in Mixtures without Demixing|journal=Neuron|language=en|volume=91|issue=5|pages=1110–1123|doi=10.1016/j.neuron.2016.08.007|pmc=5035545|pmid=27593177}} He employed deep learning methods and experimentally testable computational models to study animal behavior and neural data. He has developed tools such as DeepLabCut and DeepDraw to accurately measure animal and human behavior.{{Cite journal|last1=Mathis|first1=Mackenzie Weygandt|last2=Mathis|first2=Alexander|s2cid=203593843|date=2019-11-29|title=Deep learning tools for the measurement of animal behavior in neuroscience|journal=Current Opinion in Neurobiology|language=en|volume=60|pages=1–11|doi=10.1016/j.conb.2019.10.008|pmid=31791006|arxiv=1909.13868}} He is one of the initiators and developers of the open-source research tool DeepLabCut with his spouse Mackenzie Weygandt Mathis that estimates animal postures via computer vision and machine learning.{{Cite web|title=AlexEMG - Overview|url=https://github.com/AlexEMG|access-date=2020-06-12|website=GitHub|language=en}} Mathis has also created models and theories on adaptive behavior, in particular on motor control and sensorimotor transformations.{{Cite journal|last1=Herz|first1=Andreas VM|last2=Mathis|first2=Alexander|last3=Stemmler|first3=Martin|s2cid=22556840|date=2017-09-06|title=Periodic population codes: From a single circular variable to higher dimensions, multiple nested scales, and conceptual spaces|journal=Current Opinion in Neurobiology|language=en|volume=46|pages=99–108|doi=10.1016/j.conb.2017.07.005|pmid=28888183}} Several publications appeared during this research period, including the highly cited paper "DeepLabCut: markerless pose estimation of user-defined body parts with deep learning" by Mathis et al. published in 2018 in Nature Neuroscience.{{Cite journal|last1=Mathis|first1=Alexander|last2=Mamidanna|first2=Pranav|last3=Cury|first3=Kevin M.|last4=Abe|first4=Taiga|last5=Murthy|first5=Venkatesh N.|last6=Mathis|first6=Mackenzie Weygandt|last7=Bethge|first7=Matthias|s2cid=4748395|date=2018-08-20|title=DeepLabCut: markerless pose estimation of user-defined body parts with deep learning|url=http://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-018-0209-y|journal=Nature Neuroscience|language=en|volume=21|issue=9|pages=1281–1289|doi=10.1038/s41593-018-0209-y|pmid=30127430|issn=1097-6256}}

In August 2020, he moved as an assistant professor to the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland where he started his own research laboratory "the Mathis Group", dedicated to research at the intersection of computational neuroscience and machine learning. The Mathis Group is committed to enhancing machine learning tools for animal behavior analysis and to developing of neural network models of sensorimotor representation.{{Cite web|title=Mathis Group|url=https://www.mathislab.org/|access-date=2020-06-12|website=Mathis Group|language=en-US}}

His research was featured in The Atlantic,{{Cite web|last=Young|first=Ed|title=A Game-Changing AI Tool for Tracking Animal Movements |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/deeplabcut-tracking-animal-movements/564338/

|access-date=2020-10-10|website=The Atlantic|date=3 July 2018 |language=en}} Nature,{{Cite journal|last=Kwok|first=Roberta|date=2019-09-30|title=Deep learning powers a motion-tracking revolution|journal=Nature|language=en|volume=574|issue=7776|pages=137–138|doi=10.1038/d41586-019-02942-5|pmid=31570871|bibcode=2019Natur.574..137K|s2cid=203592858|doi-access=free}} and Quanta Magazine,.{{Cite web|last=Cepelewicz|first=Jordana|title=To Decode the Brain, Scientists Automate the Study of Behavior|url=https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-decode-the-brain-scientists-automate-the-study-of-behavior-20191210/|access-date=2020-10-10|website=Quanta Magazine|date=10 December 2019 |language=en}}

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) awarded funding for Mathis' open source project DeepLabCut.{{Cite web|date=2019-11-18|title=Researchers awarded for open-source software projects|url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/newsplus/harvard-researchers-awarded-czi-open-source-award/|access-date=2020-08-31|website=Harvard Gazette|language=en-US}} Mathis further was awarded with a postdoctoral fellowship by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft{{Cite web|title=DFG - GEPRIS - Dr. Alexander Mathis|url=https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/person/245531681?context=person&task=showDetail&id=245531681&|access-date=2020-06-12|website=gepris.dfg.de}} and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fellowship by the European Union{{Cite web|title=BETHGE LAB · Funding|url=http://bethgelab.org/home/funding/|access-date=2020-06-12|website=bethgelab.org}}

{{Google Scholar id|id=Y1xCzE0AAAAJ|name=Alexander Mathis}}

Mathis is married to fellow neuroscientist Prof. Dr. Mackenzie Weygandt Mathis, who is also the developer of DeepLabCut and an assistant professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).{{Cite web|title=Nominations of EPFL professors|date=27 September 2019 |url=https://actu.epfl.ch/news/nominations-of-epfl-professors-135/|access-date=2020-06-12|last1=Evangelista |first1=Sandy }}

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Category:Austrian neuroscientists

Category:Academic staff of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Category:Harvard University alumni

Category:University of Tübingen alumni

Category:Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Living people