Pauline Ezanno
Pauline Ezanno has been appointed head of INRAE's Animal Health Department. She had been deputy head of the same department since 2024. Prior to that, she led the DYNAMO team (Modelling in Population Dynamics and Animal Epidemiology) within the BIOEPAR unit (INRAE, Oniris) in Nantes.
With a PhD in integrative biology (Montpellier SupAgro & University of Montpellier, 2002), Pauline was recruited in 2003 as a research fellow at INRAE. Since then, she has been developing mechanistic modelling work to better understand and predict the multi-scale dynamics of animal diseases in relation to host and vector populations. Accredited to supervise research since 2010, she became a research director in 2015 and took over as head of the DYNAMO team.
She has (co-)coordinated numerous national and international projects, such as the MIHMES investment for the future project, the first international animal health modelling challenge ASF Challenge, the international network of animal health modellers ModAH-HUB, and the Horizon Europe WiLiMan-ID project. She is also the creator of two software programmes for animal health managers, both of which have been awarded an Innov'Space prize.
Involved in training and knowledge dissemination, Pauline has supervised numerous students, contributed to higher education and continuing education, and co-organised the three editions of the ModAH ‘Modelling in Animal Health’ conference. She is the author and co-author of more than 90 scientific publications.
Congratulations to Pauline Ezanno on her appointment, and best wishes for success in her new role as head of INRAE's Animal Health Department.
Houssem Ben Yahia
Houssem BEN YAHIA obtained his Ph. D. from the Faculty of Sciences in Tunis in 2019. His research focused on the dissemination of antibiotic resistance in wildlife, specifically highlighting the important role of wild birds as reservoirs and vectors for the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In June 2019, he was recruited as a postdoctoral researcher at the Higher Institute of Biological Sciences of Tunis to contribute to an international research project "Avibiocin". This project aims to study the landscape of antibiotic resistance in the poultry sector in Tunisia and the molecular mechanisms associated with it. As part of this project, Houssem worked on bacteriocins as a promising natural alternative for replacing antibiotics in poultry production. In November 2023, he joined the AFFIFISH team in the BIOEPAR unit to work on the HOLISTIC project, focusing on the detection of antibiotic resistant strains in aquaculture and environment, as well as the molecular mechanisms associated with them
Useful link : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Houssem-Ben-Yahia
Philippe Benezech
Network administrator in the INRA IT department of the Jouy-en-Josas center from 1993 to 1997, system administrator and park manager in the IT unit of the Montpellier center from 1997 to 2015 and then in the UMR Eco&Sols from 2015 to 2021.
Philippe Benezech joined us in April 2021 following an internal INRAE mobility as system, network and database administrator.
Maeva Caillat
Maéva Caillat has joined the PEPS team as a research engineer for 6 months, starting January 2024. She graduated from Centrale Nantes in 2020, specializing in applied mathematics with expertise in data science and statistics. She began her career in R&D at Phimeca in Paris, focusing on modeling the dispersion of polluants and optimizing the data monitoring of offshore structures.
At BIOEPAR, Maéva will collaborate with Juan Manuel Ariza and Nathalie Bareille to quantify the effects of adding alfalfa to the diet of dairy cows. This study will gather data from hundreds of farms over several years to assess the impact on dairy production, milk composition, animals' health, and their reproduction.
Alicia Dessis-Caley
Alicia Dessis-Caley has joined the TIBODI team at the BIOEPAR unit for a year, from September 2024 to August 2025. She has been recruited as part of an apprenticeship in the L3 pro BSA (Biotechnologies in Food Health) offered by the UFR des Sciences et Techniques in Nantes. Supervised by Maggy Jouglin and Olivier Plantard, she will be working on the QUIFOH project. This project involves studying the prevalence of Francisella tularensis (the pathogen responsible for tularemia in humans) in 5,000 ticks collected in the Quimper region, in order to answer the question: Are ticks involved in the eco-epidemiology of tularemia? To do this, she is going to develop molecular biology techniques to detect the pathogenic agent she is looking for.
Eyango Tabi Théophile Ghislain Loïc
Background: I am an agricultural engineer from Unilasalle (Rouen campus), I also have a Master Of Science in data science that I completed in double degree during my last two years of engineering training. In terms of professional experience, I have done 3 internships in farms where I was able to put into practice my theoretical knowledge as an agronomist: soil analysis, crop rotation, accounting, animal health analysis, animal reproduction and feeding analysis.
I also realized 2 internships and a full time job (6 months) as a data scientist in an IT company in agriculture, here are some important projects on which I have worked on:
* NEC (body condition score): we created several artificial neural network models that estimate the body condition score of a bovine from images taken from a phone.
* POWSI: from satellite imagery, we estimate the volume of biomass available per field and we propose an optimal grazing route for cows.
* Farmwatch: we have created several neural network models that identify individual cows, track and recognize cattle behavior from live surveillance videos.
* Sneezy: we have created a neural network model that does sound analysis and recognizes different sound categories from pigs.
Thesis subject: I am currently doing a PhD in collaboration with a company (Adventiel) in order to deepen my knowledge through research in the field of artificial intelligence applied to agriculture. My PhD subject is entitled INSATIABLE "INnovating for Animal Health through the use of Artificial Intelligence with a predictive purpose - Application to Bovine respiratory diseases".
I will have to combine two methods of modeling which are the deep learning (artificial neural networks) and the mechanistic epidemiological modeling with an aim of predicting Bovine respiratory diseases. Several data types (Video, Image, Audio) are going to be integrated by artificial neural networks in order to produce health indicators of young cattle. These health indicators will then be integrated as the parameters of the mechanistic models which are going to predict the dynamics of bovine respiratory diseases.
Interests: I am passionate about data science in general (deep learning, mathematics, statistics, machine learning, computer vision) as well as its applications in the agricultural world: remote sensing, decision support tools.
I'm also a big fan of taekwondo (I'm in 2 years), travels (I've been to 8 countries...) and gastronomy.
For the next step of my professional project, nothing is decided yet: I did some teaching (mathematics in 1 year of preparatory class) so I am not against the idea of teaching or doing research (in the private or public sector).+
Janaïna Grevelinger
After a Master's degree in Microbiology-Immunology at the University of Bordeaux, Janaïna Grevelinger joined BIOEPAR on 01 October 2021 as a PhD student in the ImmunoCare team.
Her thesis topic is the training of porcine alveolar macrophages following a primary infection with porcine influenza A virus.
She is supervised by Nicolas Bertho, Gaëlle Simon (ANSES Ploufragan) and Olivier Bourry (ANSES Ploufragan).
Sarah Ishak
Sarah Ishak obtained her veterinary medicine degree at the Lebanese University in Beirut. She joined Oniris in 2021 as a hospital assistant at the veterinary teaching hospital of farm animals. On October 1st she started a PhD thesis under the direction of Oniris supervised by Raphaël Guatteo, Anne Relun and in partnership with Idele (Institut de l'Elevage). Her thesis, entitled " Lameness in young bulls: epidemiological features and zootechnical impact", will let us know to what extent bulls have podal lesions, of what nature these lesions are and to estimate the economic losses caused by these lesions.Very few studies already exist in relation to lameness affecting bulls, hence the need to have basic knowledge of this subject that can be used in future projects.
Mickaël Mège
Mickaël Mège joined BIOEPAR on April 3, 2023 as a research engineer after working for two years at the CEA and five years at IFREMER, particularly on themes related to pathogenic organisms. He is supervised by Laurence Malandrin within the TiBoDi team to work on the study of the genetic diversity of the two blood parasites responsible for equine piroplasmosis on the basis of neutral molecular markers of the 3 genomes (genomic, mitochondrial and apicoplast) and non-neutral, to allow the implementation of molecular typing tools
Keywords: piroplasmosis; molecular; sequencing; pathogenic; genome
Marie Salaun
Marie Salaun trained as a microbiologist. During her university career, she studied physiology, biology, anatomy and pathological cytology, but it was in microbiology that she specialized through the Master de Microbiologie Fondamentale et Appliquée at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale. During this course, she had the opportunity to discover mycology through two internships at the Laboratoire Universitaire de Biologie et d'Ecologie Microbienne de Plouzané (EA 3882) under the supervision of Gaëtan Burgaud and Aurélie Philippe, and partipated in the discovery of eight fungi isolated in the Marina du Port de Brest, capable of degrading plastic polymers as their sole source of carbon.
Since October 1, 2024, Marie has joined the IMMUNOCARE team as a research technician reporting to Nicolas Bertho to support ongoing projects
Laudy Serhal
SERHAL Laudy, MPH and epidemiologist, joins the BIOEPAR unit to pursue her PhD. As part of the PREVEAU project, her thesis aims to study the role of nutrition around calving as a preventive lever for the health of the calf-cow couple.
The objectives of her thesis focus on the implementation of the concepts of observational and analytical epidemiology, to measure the incidence of health disorders and to evaluate their statistical association based on the characteristics of animals, biomarkers and livestock management with different statistical models. Thereby, an interventional epidemiological study will be set up in order to quantify the effects of the supply of a diet rich in Ώ 3 fatty acids and to assess the informative value of biomarkers with regard to the health of cattle.
She will be supervised by Nathalie Bareille and Juan-Manuel Ariza.
