Dr. Simon Sénécal
Software engineer, Computer graphics researcher and Project manager.
Hi, I am Simon ! I grew up passionate about science and technology, curious about how things work from very abstract concept to truely manual operations. My passion led me to a Bachelor in Physics from University of Paris-Sud 11 Orsay, a Master’s degree in Art and Science from INPG (Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble, France) and a PhD in Computer Graphics from University of Geneva, Switzerland.
I have worked for RealityLabs@MetaZurich with VR devices and robots, navigating within a huge international company, contributing to the codebase using the latest computational tools and my creativity. I have also participated and managed several European projects in the field of machine learning, data analysis, motion capture and 3D reconstruction.
Among other things, I also reverse-engineered an entire 30+ year ticketing system, worked at the CEA Cadarache facility with the nuclear fusion machine Tore Supra, programmed the PR2 robot from Willow Garage, contributed to an Astrophysics laboratory and generated topological isolator in a Nanotech lab.
Overall my main interest is to drive interesting projects to a successful outcome by bringing an enlightening methodology and proposing creative solutions.
Experiences
Working for Reality Labs @Meta Zurich
Meta (ex Facebook) is one of the biggest tech company in the world and has had an influence on our daily life since 20+ years. Recently, they have decided to pursue the path of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality devices, strongly thinking that it is the way we want to explore for the future of social network.
AdvanceTicket.ch, a country-wide artisanal system
AdvanceTicket.ch is a Swiss-based company that is specialised in providing a ticket management system for various cinemas across Switzerland. At the time I started working for this company, it was a small sized business led by a couple, wife and husband, that created...
3D Visualizer for Urban department
This project came from a proposal I made to an city's urban planning department. The context here is to enable the people to visualize online the proposed planned modification of their neighborhood and give their opinion at the same time on the different elements. The...
Designing a salsa learning VR app
During the PhD I developed a Salsa dance learning VR app. The idea was to simulate the act of dancing with a partner in VR using current available devices on the market (HTC Vive + controllers) and provide a way to analyse the user's motion to give feedback on the...
Managing a motion capture lab @Unige
During my time at Miralab, University of Geneva, I used to be responsible of the Motion capture laboratory. The tasks were various but always to make human motion capture and deliver a dataset of point in space or a corresponding animation. I also collected an...
Active@Home, healthy games for elderly
Active@Home is a Horizon2020 (AAL) founded project that aims at reducing falls for the elderly through the stimulation of playing gamified physical excercises. This project led by the company Dividad was a collaboration between multiples European actors such as...
Lady Ada: An interactive installation
To celebrate the year of achievement of women in science, the HNF museum in Paderborn, Germany collaborated with MIRALab at the university of Geneva to produce an interactive installation that involves Lady Ada Lovelace, one of the first scientist lady from the 1800s....
Publications
Learning and understanding partner dance through motion analysis in a virtual environment
Salsa dance learning evaluation and motion analysis in gamified virtual reality environment
Classification of Salsa Dance Level using Music and Interaction based Motion Features
Motion analysis and classification of salsa dance using music-related motion features
Continuous body emotion recognition system during theater performances
“There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.”