Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech is a faculty of the University of Liège exclusively dedicated to life sciences and bioengineering.
Founded over 160 years ago and part of the Université de Liège since October 2009, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech is a faculty on a human scale, located in the centre of Belgium, with state-of-the-art facilities that make it a veritable open-air laboratory for its students and researchers. Four distinct courses enable students to specialise in key areas of the life sciences: environmental sciences and technologies, management of forests and natural areas, agronomic sciences, chemistry and bioindustries.
With its Ecotron, botanical garden, market gardening areas, urban agriculture platform, analysis laboratories and pilot teaching equipment, the faculty trains academics and engineers capable of meeting the expectations of a rapidly changing society in the fields of environmental protection, agronomic production, and the processing and valorisation of bioresources.
Through our research units, we could develop our skills on a national and international scale in two main areas: "living resources and the environment" and "bioproducts and consumers". At Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, we favour a multidisciplinary and integrative approach within these research fields, which are closely linked to sustainable development.
We will bring our expertise into the HoliCow project by working on the modelling and use of big data, by developing the decision-making tools, and by training the trainers in collaboration with our PhDs and MSc.
Our team
Hélène Soyeurt, Scientific Collaborator
I am a Professor at the University of Liège (Gembloux
Agro-Bio Tech) where I teach algorithmics and machine learning. I’m working since
2005 on the development of new tools to extend the use of mid-infrared
spectrometry of the milk in dairy farming. More recently, I also started to
link this infrared analysis with satellite images and meteorological data to
develop decision tools to manage cows on pasture.
Nicolas Gengler, Professor
I am a professor at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, and head of the research group Numerical Genetic, Genomics and Modelling. I am responsible for the project management, modeling of longitudinal, genetic, and genomic data. I am also involved in the training of the trainers (MSc and PhD).
Charles Nickmilder, Postdoctoral Researcher
I am dealing with the
more than 60 million spectra constituting the transnational database so that
they are compatible with the local computers performances. To do so, I combine
R, python and other informatic tools I had the opportunity to master during
previous projects for handling big data, developing machine-learning models,
handling meteorological and remote sensing data.
Sébastien Franceschini,
PhD Student
I work with the Department of Statistics. My research is focused on the development of new multivariate methods to handle the increasing volume of mid-infrared predictions. I collaborate with the WP1 team where we exchange insights and scripts about our methodologies. I work mainly with unsupervised learning algorithms.
Yansen Chen, Postdoctoral Researcher
I am a postdoctoral scientific collaborator. I'm implicated in WP1 (topic leader of the “well-being” cluster) and, to a lesser extent, in WP2. I'm specialized in modeling using machine learning and mixed linear models to explore and visualize phenotypic data in R. I have a large experience in working with big data.
Katrien Wijnrocx, Postdoctoral Researcher
I am a post-doctoral scientific collaborator, mostly implicated in project management since I have previous experience with INTERREG projects. I'm also implicated in data management and analysis in SAS.
Hadi Atashi, Postdoctoral Researcher
I am a postdoctoral scientific collaborator. I'm implicated in big-data manipulation and visualization, machine learning and modeling in R. I will be working in WP1, contributing to the “environment” cluster.
Pauline Lemal, PhD Student
Altough I am currently not financed by the project, I contribute to HoliCow with my experience in modeling of heat stress and my experience with sensor data. I will be working on WP1, with a focus on the “heat stress” cluster. I also have great knowledge in molecular biology.