He obtained a PhD from the University of Toulouse (France) under the direction of Dr. Guy Theraulaz and performed his his postdoctoral work with Professor Iain Couzin at Princeton University. Simon is now the head of the Swarm Lab, an interdisciplinary research lab that studies the mechanisms underlying Collective Behaviors and Swarm Intelligence in natural and artificial systems. The Swarm Lab started to operate in July 2012 and its research aims to reveal the detailed functioning of collective intelligence in systems as diverse as ant colonies, human crowds or robotic swarms. The Swarm Lab focuses in particular on the mechanisms of information transfer and integration in large groups that can lead to adaptive (or “intelligent”) collective responses to environmental challenges.