Fabrice Lamarche

Fabrice Lamarche serves as an Associate Professor at Université de Rennes 1 within the ESIR School of Engineering, while maintaining dual affiliation with the MimeTIC research team at IRISA / INRIA Rennes. His academic career spans uninterrupted service since 2004, evolving from Assistant Professor roles at IFSIC (2003-2009) to current positions at ESIR. As co-founder of Golaem (2009), he bridges academic research with commercial application in crowd simulation technology. His institutional journey includes sequential membership in SIAMES (2004-2006), Bunraku (2007-2011), and MimeTIC (2011-present) research teams at INRIA.

Lamarche earned his PhD in Computer Sciences from Université de Rennes 1 in 2003 with thesis work on virtual human autonomy. His educational foundation includes a Master of Computer Sciences specializing in Computer Graphics and AI (1999-2000), a Master of Engineering from INSA de Rennes (1997-2000), and a Technical degree from IUT de Limoges (1995-1997).

His research program centers on virtual human behavior modeling with emphasis on decision-making systems, path planning under environmental constraints, and crowd simulation architectures. Key innovations include TopoPlan for human-scale navigation and frameworks integrating high-level task scheduling with low-level motion planning. This work addresses fundamental challenges in creating autonomous virtual characters capable of navigating complex 3D environments while exhibiting realistic behaviors, with applications spanning virtual reality, gaming, and simulation-based training systems.

Publication analysis reveals consistent output from 2001-2014, evolving from foundational behavioral animation (2001-2004) to sophisticated crowd simulation systems (2013-2014). A notable trajectory shows increasing integration of cognitive modeling with motion planning, alongside exploration of Brain-Computer Interfaces for virtual navigation. Recent work demonstrates particular strength in semantic decomposition of urban environments and time-space constrained task scheduling.

His scientific contributions have earned significant recognition:

• Rennes city medal (2009) for research excellence
• Second prize at Deutsch Telekom Awards (FMX 2008) for TopoPlan/MKM integration

As an active researcher and educator, Lamarche advises students through Université de Rennes 1 while leveraging INRIA resources and Golaem industry partnerships. His publication record indicates sustained grant funding, particularly through INRIA channels, with collaborative projects extending to neuroscience applications via Brain-Computer Interface research. The MimeTIC team affiliation provides infrastructure for multimodal interaction research in complex virtual environments.

Lamarche's laboratory work through MimeTIC focuses on developing practical implementations of virtual human autonomy systems. His research group maintains strong industry connections via Golaem, which commercializes crowd simulation technology. Current efforts emphasize semantic understanding of virtual urban spaces and robust path planning under dynamic constraints, building on foundational work in topological navigation and behavioral decision systems.