Student story - Romaric MAZNA, PhD student at i3S laboratory, DocWalker 2026 laureate

Interview

Romaric MAZNA is one of eight PhD students to have received a DocWalker scholarship in 2026 from the ‘Networks, Information and Digital Society’ Academy of Excellence. The scholarship enabled him to undertake a three-month doctoral mobility at the Center for Project-Based Learning D-ITET at ETH Zürich.

3rd September 2026

What is your area of reserach?

I am a second-year PhD student at the I3S lab, working on developing bio-inspired attentional models for event-based data. My research combines bio-inspiration, deep learning, and computer vision to reduce the energy consumption of intelligent embedded vision systems while maintaining high precision and reliability.

How did your international mobility project start?

My PhD is funded by the interdisciplinary NAMED project, an international ANR PRCI project carried out in collaboration with the SNSF.

It brings together three institutions: the i3S laboratory (CNRS/Université Côte d'Azur), the SCALab laboratory (CNRS/Université de Lille), and the Center for Project-Based Learning (PBL) at D-ITET, ETH Zürich.

Naturally, we had many interactions with the PBL center from the very beginning of my PhD, and we thought the Docwalker program would be an excellent opportunity to make progress on our joint projects.

Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering
Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering

 

How did you prepare for your departure?

The preparation was very smooth, thanks to Mrs. Nathalie CURRID on the UNICA side for her help. In Switzerland, I didn't have to handle any paperwork, as ETH HR took care of everything. I only had to look for a place to stay, which was also easy to find. On the scientific side, we already knew what we wanted to do, and I had prepared my model before leaving.

What was your daily life like there?

I lived outside Zürich, but thanks to the region's well-developed transport system, I could reach the lab with a 30-minute commute. I shared an office with other PhD students who were more familiar with the hardware devices I had to work with, so I could easily ask them questions or for help. I could also attend the team meetings and events, including a NAMED project meeting hosted by the PBL center during my visit. I also had time to explore Zürich and its surroundings, mainly by going hiking

NAMED meeting
NAMED meeting NAMED meeting

Zentrum campus
Zentrum campus Zentrum campus

What do you take away from this doctoral stay abroad?

This experience enriched my research by opening up new directions and new ways of working that I wasn't aware of before. It gave me a clear idea of how my models could be useful in practice, which target hardware could host them, and how to design them efficiently. It also allowed me to make new connections, and I am now collaborating with some of the people I met at ETH. I believe this experience accelerated my progress, and these months at the PBL have been the most valuable time of my PhD journey so far.

Do you have any advice for future mobility candidates?

This is an opportunity that deserves to be taken full advantage of, both scientifically and personally. I would say make sure to complete the required paperwork on time, or even in advance, so that when you arrive you can focus on your work immediately. Once there, be curious, be interested, ask questions, observe, learn, and most importantly, talk to people in the lab.

Lake Zürich
Lake Zürich

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