Mackenzie Weygandt Mathis

Biography

Mackenzie W. Mathis is the Bertarelli Foundation Chair of Integrative Neuroscience and assistant professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Her lab investigates the mechanisms underlying adaptive behaviour in intelligent systems, combining machine learning, computer vision and experimental work in rodents to understand the neural basis of adaptive motor control. After a Ph.D. at Harvard with Naoshige Uchida, she launched her independent group as a Rowland Fellow at Harvard before moving to EPFL.

Research Interests

• neural circuits
• movement analysis
• deep learning
• goal-directed behaviour
• DeepLabCut

SCENE Teams

Theory & Data Analysis Team

Mouse Team

Data Science Core Team

Featured Publications

• The Simons Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience: Studying how the brain interacts with the world

  Angelaki DE, Batista A, Fitzgerald T, Kominsky JF, Lengyel M, Mathis A, Mathis MW, Moss CF, Niell CM, Noel JP, Pitkow X, Rothkopf CA, Savin C, Stachenfeld K, Suthana N, Tolias A, Ulanovsky N, Wolpert DM, Wong A, Zimmermann J

  Neuron, 2026 · DOI (opens in new tab) · Preprint (PDF) (opens in new tab)

• The behavior biopsy: Interpreting animal behavior as embodied, situated, and hierarchical

  Bonnetto A, Mamooler S, Li C, Mathis A

  Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 2026 · DOI (opens in new tab)

• Leveraging insights from neuroscience to build adaptive artificial intelligence

  Mathis MW

  Nature Neuroscience, 2026 · DOI (opens in new tab) · Preprint (PDF) (opens in new tab)