Gatien Ricotier
Data scientist / researcher in history of mathematics
Strasbourg, France
I am a data scientist at the medical laboratory B2A, a researcher in history of mathematics, and an enjoyer of data and beautiful analysis and applications.
My main interests are - obviously - in data, mathematics, and history (mostly from the end of WWI), but more generally in open collaboration, artificial intelligence, and web3. Feel free to send me an email for any discussion, feedback, or ideas.
I have not, of course, created this web page whithout any help. Thanks to David Miller for sharing his templates under the Open Source MIT license.
Last update : April 2024.Data science
Using available data
Whether it's at my at my work at B2A or with any other kind of data available (such as public repositories and databases, forums, blockchains, or historical archives), there is plenty of data awaiting to be taken care of. We know that someone has to handle them to make insightful discoveries, and since we can't improve the world we live in unless we all do, I'm making sense of them. This involves improving early diagnosis of pathologies, spending weeks in unused archives, easing blood sample measurement, or finding the right tax to prevent bot spamming.
Building useful tools
Mastering the fundamentals of data cleaning, exploration, and synthesis is only one aspect of my job. What truly drives me is uncovering meaningful insights and crafting compelling presentations. Creating dynamic data visualizations, interactive dashboards, or developing chatbots for querying business data in natural language sparks joy in my day-to-day life.
History of mathematics
During a winter school in mathematics in 2016, I discovered I'm more interested in how common knowledge is constructed and spread, than finding actual theorems. Since then, I have completed a PhD in history of mathematics on the collective Bourbaki and I keep working on related topics.
Open collaboration
Bourbaki is an example of an open collaboration project among most recent ones such as mailing lists and forums, open source software development, Wikipedia, math/stack overflow, and so on. My main interests are the motivations and incentives for open collaboration, the profiles and activities of the members of such communities, the impact of societal and scientific evolution or crisis on their development, and, the other way around, the impact of these contributions outside their communities.
Henri Cartan's drafts
Henri Cartan's children gave their father's drafts, mainly notebooks, at IRMA's library in 2009. Michèle Audin ordered them in 2014 and made an inventory which is available here. I took advantage of living in Strasbourg to work on these notebooks. Do not hesitate to ask for information or a few scans.
One of the main reasons for working on this archive comes from the fact that the first meetings of the Bourbaki's group have been described as a consequence of the - loads of - questions from Henri Cartan to André Weil about his calculus' teaching. The evolutions of his lessons on general mathematics, calculus or algebraic topology are quite impressive.
Academic positions in France during the XXth Century
After my research in academic archives for my PhD, I do have now an interesting material to track the positions of academics in France : the "Tableaux de classement du personnel enseignant et scientifique". I'm starting to extract the data in them in order to build a website for tracking the positions of individuals and the individuals in a specific position.
Publications in history of mathematics
Securing an academic position in France during the interwar period: was it better back then?
A l'origine de Bourbaki : l'évolution de l'enseignement du calcul différentiel et intégral d'Henri Cartan entre 1931 et 1940
Bourbaki, ordinary singularities and a singular collective
Projets collectifs et personnels autour de Bourbaki dans les années 1930 à 1950
Jean Leray et Bourbaki : exemple d’une lutte de pouvoir sur fond d’avancement de carrière à la fin des années 1930
Contributions with B2A
Correction de la kaliémie en fonction de la température et du délai pré-analytique
Etude de la prédictibilité de la résistance des Enterobacterales aux quinolones en fonction de la CMI de l’ofloxacine
Hépatite E : plus-value du biologiste dans une pathologie sous diagnostiquée
Etude de la cinétique de la propagation des variants du COVID-19
Talks in history of mathematics
