Alex Cayco Gajic

Alex Cayco Gajic is a Professor in the Department of Cognitive Studies at École Normale Supérieure, Paris, with affiliations to the ENS Quantitative Biology Centre and the Paris Artificial Intelligence Research Institute. Their research bridges machine learning, mathematical modeling, and systems neuroscience, focusing on cerebellar function and neural dynamics during learning.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, University of Washington (2015)
• B.Sc. in Applied and Computational Mathematics, Caltech (2009)

Research interests center on neural coding, dimensionality reduction, and reinforcement learning. Key contributions include elucidating the cerebellum’s role in high-dimensional representations, pattern separation, and task-dependent neural dynamics. Recent work on tensor rank analysis reveals how synaptic changes during motor learning evolve in low-dimensional subspaces.

Advising:

• Supervising PhD students: Leonardo Agueci, Mattia Della Vecchia, Hugo Ninou
• Collaborating with EMBO Postdoc Heike Stein

The lab collaborates with Boris Gutkin, Sophie Deneve, and Srdjan Ostojic within the Group for Neural Theory at Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives. Their work aims to challenge classical views of the cerebellum as a forward model and explore its interactions with the neocortex and basal ganglia in motor and cognitive domains.