Maxime Lucas

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Welcome! I am a physicist working at the intersection of dynamical systems and networks, with a strong interest in applications to the life sciences. My research combines theory, data analysis, and experiments to explore the complexity of systems such as fungal networks, brains, and animal communication.

I am currently a postdoctoral fellow funded by the FNRS, working on the structure and growth of fungal networks. I am based at the Namur Institute for Complex Systems (UNamur) and the Laboratory of Mycology (UCLouvain), in Belgium. I am also part of Project CETI, a large interdisciplinary collaboration trying to decipher the communication of sperm whales.

Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the CENTAI Institute and the ISI Foundation in Turin with Giovanni Petri, and before that at CENTURI in Marseille with Alain Barrat, Bianca Habermann, and Laurent Tichit. I obtained my PhD as part of the COSMOS Marie Curie training network co-supervised by Aneta Stefanovska (Lancaster University) and Duccio Fanelli (University of Florence). I also hold an MSc in Physics from Université Libre de Bruxelles and a complementary MSc in Artificial Intelligence from KULeuven.

Research interests
Complex systems · Dynamical systems · Complex networks · Synchronization · Life Sciences

news

Dec 25 “Topological analysis of brain dynamical signals indicates signatures of seizure susceptibility” now out in Physical Review E!
Dec 25 Renée Locreille got the FRIA PhD scholarship to work with Stéphane Declerck and me on fungal networks!
Oct 25 “On the state-nonstate theory of hypnosis: Network and topological EEG findings” now out in Cerebral Cortex!
Apr 25 “Hamiltonian control to desynchronize Kuramoto oscillators with higher-order interactions”, out in PRE!
Mar 25 “Synergistic signatures of group mechanisms in higher-order systems”, out in Phys. Rev. Lett., Featured in Physics and Editor’s suggestion! See this Commentary.

selected publications

  1. Deeper but smaller: Higher-order interactions increase linear stability but shrink basins, Science Advances, 2024 Y. Zhang, P. S. Skardal, F. Battiston, G. Petri, and M. Lucas
  2. Higher-order interactions shape collective dynamics differently in hypergraphs and simplicial complexes, Nature Communications, 2023 Y. Zhang*, M. Lucas*, and F. Battiston
  3. Networks beyond pairwise interactions: structure and dynamics, Physics Reports, 2020 F. Battiston, G. Cencetti, I. Iacopini, V. Latora, M. Lucas, A. Patania, J.-G. Young, and G. Petri