Hello!
My name is Sébastien Lefèvre, and I am currently a Full Professor in Computer Science at the University of South Brittany (Vannes Institute of Technology) since September 2010.
I founded the OBELIX group from IRISA laboratory, and led the group from 2013 to 2021 (Prof. Nicolas Courty is leading the group since March 2021).
I am also coordinating the GeoData Science track within the Erasmus Mundus Copernicus Master in Digital Earth.
My main research topics are image analysis/processing, pattern recognition and indexing, machine learning, deep learning and data mining with applications in remote sensing for Earth observation.

I am continuously seeking highly-motivated candidates with excellent academic profile and proven research skills to engage in a PhD or Postdoc. Please contact me by email if you believe you match these requirements and are interested in our topics! See open positions.

Current positions

• Head of the GeoData Science track within the Copernicus Master in Digital Earth
• Coordinator of international partnerships for IUT Vannes
• Teaching within Vannes Institute of Technology (IUT Vannes), UBS
• Research within IRISA, a Joint Research Institute from CNRS, INRIA, UR1, UBS, IMTA, ENS Rennes, INSA Rennes, CentraleSupelec Rennes

Short Vitae

• since 2017. Promoted 1st class at the national level (CNU 27)
• since 2010. Full Professor at the University of South Brittany
• 2013-2021. Founder and Head of the OBELIX research team (IRISA, UBS/CNRS)
• 2012-2016. Deputy Head of the Doctoral School SICMA
• 2012-2013. Head of the UBS Computer Science Lab (Vannes site of IRISA)
• 2009-2010. Invited scientist within INRIA Rennes Bretagne Atlantique (TEXMEX team)
• 2009. Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR) from University of Strasbourg
• 2003-2010. Associate professor (Maître de Conférences) at the University of Strasbourg
• 2002-2003. Assistant professor (ATER) at the University of Tours
• 2002. Ph.D. degree at University of Tours, funded by ANRT & ATOS Origin, under the direction of Nicole Vincent
• 1999. DEA in System Control, University of Technology of Compiègne, equivalent to a Master Degree in Computer Science and Engineering
• 1999. Engineer diploma at UTC (University of Technology of Compiègne), Computer Engineering department, a French engineering school, equivalent to a Master Degree in Engineering

PhD Students

I am (or was) implied in the advising process of the following PhD thesis:

• Erchan Aptoula, PhD in 2008, supervised with Christian Ronse
• Sébastien Derivaux, PhD in 2009, supervised wit Jerzy Korczak and Cédric Wemmert
• Benjamin Perret, PhD in 2010, supervised with Christophe Collet, Erik Slezak, and Vincent Mazet
• Jonathan Weber, PhD in 2010, supervised with Pierre Gançarski
• Petra Bosilj, PhD in 2016, supervised with Ewa Kijak
• Romain Huet, PhD in 2017, supervised with Nicolas Courty
• Yanwei Cui, PhD in 2017, supervised with Laetitia Chapel
• Nicolas Audebert, PhD in 2018, supervised with Bertrand Le Saux (ONERA)
• Çağlayan Tuna, PhD in 2020, supervised with François Merciol and Charlotte Pelletier
• Florent Guiotte, PhD in 2021, supervised with Thomas Corpetti
• Ahmed Samy Nassar, PhD in 2021, supervised with Jan Dirk Wegner (ETH Zurich)
• Heng Zhang, PhD in 2021, supervised with Elisa Fromont and Bruno Avignon (Atermes)


• Javiera Castillo Navarro, (started in January 2019), supervised with Bertrand Le Saux and Alexandre Boulch (ONERA)
• Manal Hamzaoui, (started in November 2019), supervised with Laetitia Chapel and Minh-Tan Pham
• Iris De Gelis, (started in January 2020), supervised with Thomas Corpetti
• Jean-Christophe Burnel (started in September 2020), supervised with Luc Courtrai

Academic responsibilities

I am (or was recently) implied in the following academic responsabilities:

• Associated Editor, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
• Member of the Editorial Board, MDPI Remote Sensing
• Member of the Editorial Board, MDPI ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
• Guest Editor, Special Issue on Advances in Object-Based Image Analysis -- Linking with Computer Vision and Machine Learning, Remote Sensing
• Guest Editor, Special Issue on Image Retrieval in Remote Sensing, Remote Sensing
• Guest Editor, Special Issue on Paving the way for the future of Urban Remote Sensing, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing
• Guest Editor, Special Issue on Machine Learning for Earth Observation Data, Machine Learning
• Co-chair of JURSE 2019
• Co-chair of GEOBIA 2016
• Co-chair of the specials sessions "Image Retrieval in Remote Sensing" (CBMI 2014) and "Indexing, Retrieval, Annotation and Mining in Earth Observation" (CBMI 2018)
• Co-chair of workshop "TerraData: pattern recognition and machine learning applied to Earth observation and large-scale remote sensing" within RFIAP/CFPT 2018
• Co-chair of workshop "Machine Learning for Earth Observation" within ECML-PKDD 2019, 2020, 2021
• Co-chair of the MACLEAN (Machine Learning for Earth Observation) action within the GDR MADICS (national cluster in data science)
• Scientific advisory board member of International Future AI Lab AI4EO
• Executive board member of AFRIF (French society in pattern recognition and computer vision / national chapter of IAPR)
• Scientific board member of GIS BreTel (Scientific Interest Group on Remote Sensing in Brittany)
• Scientific board member of PNR Golfe du Morbihan

International projects

• Copernicus Master in Digital Earth (Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree with University of Salzbourg and Palacky University Olomouc)
• Monitoring of tree species with object-based satellite image time series analysis (PHC Pamoja with TU Kenya)

National projects

• coordinator of ASTERIX (ANR JCJC with LETG-Costel, DYNAFOR, LIVE and IPGS) (completed)
• member of VEGIDAR (CNES TOSCA with LETG-Costel, LabSTICC, IGN and LIVE) (completed)
• member of SESAME (ANR ASTRID with Lab-STICC, IRISA-Myriads, and CLS) (completed)
• member of DeepDetect (ANR ASTRID with Lab-STICC, IUEM, and MBDA) (completed)
• member of Game of Trawls (FEAMP with IFREMER, Marport, CDMPMEM56) (started 2019)
• member of MULTISCALE (ANR PRCI with LETG-Costel, Gebze Technical University and Istanbul Technical University) (started 2019)
• member of 6P (ANR PRCE with GE, EPOC, ISPA, BRGM, AJ) (started 2019)
• coordinator of SEMMACAPE (ADEME with FEM, AFB, WIPSEA) (started 2019)
• scientific coordinator of OWFSOMM (ANR/FEM) (started 2020)

Regional/local projects

• member of SENSE (Labex CominLabs with Lab-STICC) (completed)
• member of Littoralg (UBS PPI with other UBS labs) (completed)
• member of DELORA (AAP PME with Tellus Environment and Artefacto) (completed)

Industrial collaborations

• WIPSEA
• SIRS
• Tellus Environment
• CLS
• Magellium
• Quantcube
• CNES
• DGA