Bio
Cédric Cannard is a French Computational Neuroscientist and researcher whose work integrates neuroscience, neuropsychology, biosignal analysis, robust statistics, software development, and machine/deep learning.
He holds a Bachelor's degree in Sports Science, a Master's in Neuropsychology and Clinical Neuroscience, and a PhD in Neuroscience. During his Master's, he contributed to research on brain atrophy in schizophrenia (with Dr. Dollfus at the ISTCT Laboratory, CEA, Caen) and on brain oscillations underlying visual perception, color vision, and attention (with Dr. VanRullen at the CerCo Laboratory, CNRS, Toulouse). During his PhD with Dr. Arnaud Delorme (2018–2021), he developed open-source tools for low- and high-density EEG analysis, collected and processed large-scale EEG datasets using wearable technologies (>500 participants), analyzed multimodal biosignals (EEG, ECG, PPG, GSR/EDA, EGG, voice), built several EEGLAB plugins, and identified EEG and HRV correlates of well-being using low-cost hardware.
As a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (2021–2024), he investigated transformation, meditation, altered states of consciousness, predictive processes, quantum wave-collapse experiments, and developed the BrainBeats toolbox for facilitating the study of brain-heart interactions and the Ascent toolbox for computing brain entropy/complexity/aperiodic measures.
He then served as Director of Research at Evolve, Inc. (2024–2025), a neurotechnology startup developing transformational VR-based, multimodal biofeedback programs (EEG, HRV, EDA) for nervous system regulation, cognitive training, and wellness. In this role, he collaborated closely with hardware, software, and product teams on data collection, hardware validation, algorithm development and optimization, statistical analyses, program and study design, IP research, and scientific communication.
Cédric now works as an independent research scientist and an Associate Member of UC San Diego's Institute for Neural Computation, where he leads the development of iEEGLAB, an EEGLAB plugin for intracranial EEG. At the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies (IACS), a nonprofit research organization, he led the analysis showing that heartbeat-related spectral power tracks meditative depth in experienced Vipassana practitioners (under peer review). As a Research Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, he was principal investigator of a virtual-reality study of how the brain and body anticipate and react to unpredictable car crashes, released with open data and code. He also studies predictive processing in rat cortical cultures with Will Reid at Valis Corporation, and develops psychophysics software for UC Irvine.
He is a reviewer for high-impact scientific journals (e.g., Scientific Reports, Scientific Data, npj Digital Medicine, PLOS ONE, and Frontiers in Neuroscience), a moderator of the EEGLAB discussion list, and a member/advisor for Valis Corporation.
