About me

email	2a4945445e4b495e6a4b494b46464b584e04444f5e (PGP key)
address	Antonin Callard
	Laboratoire LIRMM, Université de Montpellier
	161 rue Ada, 34090 Montpellier, France
office	E3.14, Bâtiment 4

My name is Antonin Callard. I am a “maître de conférences”¹ teaching at the Université de Montpellier (France) and doing research as part of the ESCAPE team in the LIRMM lab.

I study symbolic dynamical systems (e.g. shift spaces) based on their computational, dynamical and topological properties, at the interface of various notions from theoretical computer science (computability and complexity theory, information theory, Kolmogorov complexity…) and mathematics (dynamical systems, geometric group theory…). My PhD focused on multidimensional sofic shift spaces, which are analogs of regular formal languages in an infinite and higher-dimensional setting.

If you have complaints, comments, suggestions, or just want to chat about any of the things mentioned in this page, you can reach me via the email above or visit me in my office²!

I studied theoretical computer science at ENS Paris-Saclay between 2018 and 2021. During my studies, I completed research internships under Mathieu Hoyrup (2019), Pascal Vanier (2020) and Benjamin Hellouin de Menibus (2021). I graduated from M2 MPRI during summer 2021, and I was a research visitor mentored by Ville Salo at the University of Turku (Finland) for the academic year 2021–2022. I finally completed my PhD at the Université de Caen (France) between September 2022 and June 2025 under Pascal Vanier. I feel deeply indebted to all of my previous mentors for their very kind supervisions.

I then became an assistant professor at the beginning of the academic year 2026–2027, after doing a one-year postdoc at the LIP lab (ENS de Lyon, France) with Daria Pchelina.

My research focuses on shift spaces, which are deeply fascinating objects that I study through a computational lens. Aside from (un)decidability results, I consider many example of subshifts that exhibit particular properties of interest (be they combinatorial, e.g. soficity; or dynamical, e.g. non-periodicity, mixingness…) in somewhat creative constructions. Such topics being particularly open-ended, I enjoy exploring numerous perspectives.

Outside of research, my interests lie in movies, books, music, tabletop and video games (Celeste, Outer Wilds and Hollow Knight are peak awesomeness, by the way), Linux-related stuff, long walks and (even longer) discussions with friends. I have deep gratitude for those who indulge with me in these time-consuming yet very enjoyable activities. 😃