ABOUT ME
General infos
I am a French scientist from the Loire region of France. Like many children, I was fascinated by dinosaurs from an early age. After earning my baccalauréat, I pursued a degree in geology at Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University in Lyon. I completed a Bachelor’s in Geosciences, followed by a Master’s in Earth, Planets, and Environments, where I had the opportunity to learn from researchers at the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon - Terre Planètes Environnments (LGL -TPE) and the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon). I am currently pursuing a PhD at Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich.
Artistic background
I have been drawing since the age of five or six and have taken a few drawing classes. In high school, I chose an art elective, which allowed me to explore various artistic fields, including photography, drawing, video production, and painting, while experimenting with a wide range of artistic styles.
It was during an internship in the third year of my Bachelor's degree that I had the opportunity to create my first true scientific illustration (see right). This drawing depicts one of the Arthropleura specimens from Montceau-les-Mines, which contributed to the publication by L’Héritier et al. (2024). This experience marked a turning point for me, as it led me to develop a growing interest in technical drawing, particularly through the dot art technique, which I have been refining ever since.
Mickaël Lhéritier et al.,Head anatomy and phylogenomics show the Carboniferous giant Arthropleura belonged to a millipede-centipede group.Sci. Adv.10,eadp6362(2024).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adp6362
SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND
My first one-month research internship took place at LGL-TPE under the supervision of Vincent Perrier and Mickaël Lhéritier. My objective was to create a scientific illustration reconstructing fossil specimens of Arthropleura from the Montceau-les-Mines Lagerstätte in France while proposing ecological and environmental interpretations.
During my Master’s first year, I completed a two-month internship at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, under the supervision of Matúš Hyžný and Jan Schlögl. Throughout this internship, I studied a fossil assemblage from the Toarcian of Slovakia, focusing on the taxonomic description of crustaceans from this deposit.
In my second year of Master’s, I undertook a six-month internship with Joachim and Carolin Haug at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich. During this time, I analyzed the raptorial appendages of three groups of Euchelicerata: Caeculidae (mites), Amblypygi, and Laniatores (Opiliones). My aim was to understand the morphological evolution of these appendages within each group, compare them across taxa, and determine whether their similarities were the result of morphological convergence.
Since February 2025, I have been pursuing my PhD in the Zoomorphology workgroup at LMU, under the supervision of Joachim Haug and Alexander Nützel. My research focuses on tongue-worm-like fossils (Pentastomida) from the Ordovician of Sweden. The goal of my project is to investigate their morphological and ecological evolution between the Cambrian and Ordovician. Thanks to their exceptional preservation (‘Orsten’-type), I aim to reconstruct their internal anatomy, shedding light on the evolution of tongue worms and parasitism as a whole.