🎓 Education
Ph.D. - Signal Processing, Artificial Intelligence & Video Compression Jun 2023 – Jun 2026
Université de Rennes · 
INRIA team COMPACT · 
MediaKind (CIFRE) Thesis: "Learned video downscaling for end-to-end Rate-Distortion optimization of video streaming systems"
Industrial supervisors: J. Le Tanou, M. Ropert (MediaKind)
Academic supervisors: T. Maugey, A. Roumy (INRIA)
Industrial supervisors: J. Le Tanou, M. Ropert (MediaKind)
Academic supervisors: T. Maugey, A. Roumy (INRIA)
M.Ing. - Electronic & Computer Engineering 2020 – 2023
INSA Rennes - Institut National des Sciences AppliquéesEmbedded systems design (hardware & software), digital/analog signal processing, image analysis, AI (NN, CNN, transfer learning, GANs), VHDL, real-time systems.
M.Eng. - Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering (Exchange semester) Sep 2022 – Jan 2023
École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) · Montréal, QC, CanadaSelected courses: fly-by-wire systems (MGA804), video communication systems (MTI810), DSP architecture (SYS835), introduction to avionics (GPA745).
CUPGE - Computer Science & Engineering (Preparatory cycle) 2018 – 2020
ESIR - École Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de RennesRank: 4th / 45. Foundations of IT, functional and OO programming, digital/analog electronics, mathematical engineering.
💼 Experience
PhD Researcher - Deep Learning for Video Compression Aug 2023 – present
MediaKind · Rennes, France (Hybrid) - CIFRE Partnership with INRIA- Developed surrogate gradient methods enabling end-to-end training through non-differentiable codecs (H.264/AVC, H.266/VVC).
- Proposed a geometric interpretation of the SCALED surrogate gradient as an oblique projection, establishing its MSE-optimality under intensity-shift invariance.
- Extended the framework to full neural wrapper optimization (pre- and post-processing), achieving BD-Rate (PSNR) reductions up to −23.59% on x264 and −20.07% on VVenC.
- Paper accepted at PCS 2025, Aachen (IEEE Signal Processing Society).
Part-time Lecturer Mar 2024 – Jun 2025
Université de Rennes · Rennes, France (On-site)- ACV - Video compression basics (ESIR 2nd year)
- AI & Data Science - M2 EEEA and ISTIC
- Python / C++ Programming - M2 SIVOS, ISTIC
Video Codec Research Intern Jan 2023 – Jul 2023
MediaKind · Cesson-Sévigné, France- Designed fast algorithms for VVC/HEVC intra/inter partitioning.
- Built a prediction model to estimate the optimal split pattern for a given coding unit, reducing encoding complexity.
Video Research Intern May 2022 – Aug 2022
Haivision · Rennes, France- AV1 / VP9 transcoding evaluation for social network delivery pipelines.
- Subjective and objective quality assessments (VMAF, PSNR, BD-Rate).
- Real-time analysis on Intel platform with SVT optimizations.
- Developed a full performance analysis tool (GStreamer / libx264) in Shell / Python / JS.
- Integrated ML algorithms in C for content-aware preset prediction in H.264.
Video Research Intern Jun 2021 – Aug 2021
Harmonic · FranceStudy of the impact of AI-based upscaling (Pixop) followed by downscaling on perceived quality and H.264/H.265 encoding performance.
🛠 Skills
Programming & Frameworks
Python (advanced)
C / C++ (advanced)
PyTorch/TensorFlow
VHDL
Video & Compression
H.264 / AVC (x264)
H.265 / HEVC
H.266 / VVC (VVenC)
AV1 / VP9
ABR Streaming
Bitrate Ladder
Machine Learning & AI
Deep Learning
CNN / U-Net
Differentiable Programming
Surrogate Gradients
📄 Publications
SCALED - Surrogate Codec Approach for Learned End-to-end Downscaling December 2025
E. Pesnel, J. Le Tanou, M. Ropert, T. Maugey, A. Roumy
Picture Coding Symposium (PCS) 2025, Aachen - IEEE Signal Processing Society
🏫 Teaching
AI Tools - PCA, SVM/SVR, Machine Learning Fall 2025
M2 SIVOS - ISTIC, Université de Rennes
Coding Tools - C++, OO Programming, Python Fall 2025
M2 SIVOS - ISTIC, Université de Rennes
ACV - Image & Entropy Coding Spring 2024 & 2025
ESIR, Université de Rennes - with A. Roumy (INRIA)
🌍 Languages
🇫🇷
French
Native
🇬🇧
English
TOEIC 935 / 990
🇪🇸
Spanish
Professional