Xiaowen Chen

I am a postdoctoral researcher at LPENS, CNRS, working on topics in theoretical biophysics. Using both analytical and data-driven methods from statistical physics, I am devoted to understand the emergence of collective behavior in real biological networks, especially in neuronal networks and animal behavior. Currently, I am working in the Statistical Biophysics Group led by Aleksandra Walczak and Thierry Mora. We are building statistical inference methods for collective dynamics in interacting systems. We are applying these models to understand the collective dynamics of social interaction among groups of mice (collaboration with Ewelina Knapska and Alicja Puścian, Nenski Institute), and also how information flows in neuronal networks of zebrafish (collaboration with Claire Wyart’s lab, ICM Paris).

Before my current position, I obtained my PhD degree in Physics from Princeton University in 2020, supervised by William Bialek. My work focused on the collective behavior in networks of neurons through both data-driven and more analytical approaches, including constructing data-driven models for the coherent neuronal activity in the nematode C. elegans (collaboration with Andrew Leifer, Princeton), and analytically exploring the possibility for interacting neuronal systems to achieve long time scales without fine tuning. I have also conducted research in dynamical systems and chaos, and atomic physics.

You can contact me via email at

firstname.lastname@phys.ens.fr

News:

• Apr 22-26, 2024: We are organizing “Interdisciplinary challenges in non-equilibrium physics: from soft to active, biological and complex matter” International Workshop in MPI PKS-Dresden. Come join as in the workshop by early-career researchers for early-career researchers!
• Dec 20, 2023: Our new paper on Generalized Glauber dynamics as a novel inference method for collective dynamics (and the steady state distribution!) is published on PRX! Check out the synopsis here.
• Aug 3-5, 2023: I will give an invited talk at StatPhys28 Satellite Meeting in Hong Kong.
• Jul 26, 2023: Our new preprint on collective behavior in social mice is on bioRxiv!
• Apr 17-21, 2023: I will give a talk at Interchall2023, i.e. a conference on “Interdisciplianry Challenges: from non-equilibrium physics to life” in Rome.
• Mar 30-31, 2023: I will talk about statistical inference methods for collective dynamics, and application in social mice, in Journées Interdisciplinaires de Physique Statistique in LPTMS.
• Mar 16, 2023: Our new paper on adapting Granger causality analysis to calcium signals in neuronal systems is published on eLife!
• Nov 25, 2022: We organized Paris Biological Physics Community Day, a conference organized by and for PhD students and Postdocs.

[Last updated: April 4, 2024]