is Emeritus Professor at the Collège de France (Chair of Physiology) and former founder and Director of the Perception and Action. Lab. CNRS / Collège de France). He is an Engineer (Ecole des Mines. Nancy), and is an expert in Biomechanics, Psychology and Neurophysiology. He is a world known specialist of the physiology of multisensory integration, spatial orientation, the vestibular system, the oculomotor system, locomotion, and spatial memory. His lab has participated in more than 10 SPACEFLIGHT on the MIR Station, SPACELAB and International Space Station for the study of the influence of gravity on perception, equilibrium and motor control. He has contributed to the understanding of the neural mechanisms of eye movements, posture and locomotion, multisensory integration, spatial memory. He pioneered use of intracellular recordings in animal,functional MRI in humans and intracranial neural recordings in patients. He has worked on of sensory-motor and cognitive pathologies in children and adults, and cognitive functions including recently psychiatric diseases (Schizophrenia, Autism, Alzheimer, Mild cognitive disorders, Cerebral Palsy etc.) and the the neural basis of empathy and sympathy. He has been at the origin of the technical development of a number of biomedical equipments, motion capture, haptic force-feedback devices, eye movement measurement, virtual reality for the study of navigation, locomotor and executive function deficits. He cooperates with robotics groups in Japan and Italy for neuro-inspired robotics and humanoids and participated in several projects (NEUROROBOTICS, ROBOSOM, ROMEO, KOROIBOT etc..). He is the author of more than 300 papers in International journals. Gave plenary lectures at BIOROB, ICRA, IROS.
He is a member of the French Academy of sciences and the Academy of Technologies, the Academia Europae, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and other Academies: Belgium Royal Academy of Medicine, Academy of Medicine of Bulgaria, International Academy of Astronautics. And has received several international prizes for his research. He has received the honors of Officier de l’Ordre du Mérite, Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, Commandatore of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
Recently he has obtained the Castang Price of the European Society of Child neurology (2015) , the Hallpike-Nylén price for Patho-physioloy of the vestibular system ( 2016), he has been elected at the Royal Belgium Academy of Sciences and Humanities ( 2016) and the Honoris Causa title of University of Salerno (2016).