After 10 months in Antibes working with the Aromath group at Inria for my doctoral secondment, my days on the fantastic Côte d’Azur are coming to an end.
In November, I traded the mountains of Trentino, the Italian food and my first desk as a PhD student for the sunny French Riviera, which offered me a new life full of possibilities. What surprised me the most at first was that at INRIA, which unlike the University of Trento is a research center organized into small groups, it’s common to go to lunch with team members, and so from the very beginning I was able to spend a lot of time with my colleagues, including the TENORNS PhD students Henri and Matteo and my supervisor, Bernard Mourrain.
In addition, the “running seminars,” board game afternoons, and other activities together outside of the research environment helped me feel welcome and integrated right away.
Regarding research, exploring the decomposition of generic symmetric tensors of sub-generic rank with Bernard, we have found interesting and surprising results, which we hope will improve the efficiency of current methods. We have also completed a project on a new interpretation of extension algorithms in terms of multiplication tensors of algebras together with my advisor in Trento
Alessandra Bernardi and with J. Jelisiejew, who organized a school on tensors with M. Michalek where the idea for the project was born. Finally, with D.Taufer we studied new methods for studying the local structure of tensors, and we have written a short paper about it. Overall, these have been very productive months where I have been able to explore in depth different research directions.
Another highlight has been the weekly reading group on Lie groups and algebras that we have organized in the Aromath team with Matteo and Henri. It has mainly consisted of 90 minutes sessions where we discussed the theory and solved exercises together, in a very interactive and cooperative way. I am really looking forward to learning more about it and applying it to my research.
I can only express my most sincere gratitude to everyone who has been part of this wonderful period. Excited for the upcoming year back in Trento!