Pauline Provini
Long term fellow
pauline.provini@learningplanetinstitute.org
Hello, I am a French researcher in Evolutionary Biology, interested in Functional Morphology, Biomechanics and Modelling. When I was young I wanted to be a paleontologist to understand how dinosaurs were moving! Today, I study living birds to better understand how they move. As a long-term fellow at CRI, I will focus on birdsong biomechanics, to better understand how living birds are singing. It will provide new elements to build a bio-inspired voice prosthesis for human suffering from a laryngeal cancer.
Pauline's Bio

I study the links between body structure and function in Vertebrates and the role of these interactions for Evolution. I want to understand why an organism has a given shape and how the shaping of an animal is driven by its motions and the environment it is moving in.

Among other things, I studied the influence of the big kiwi egg on its locomotion, how the water flow is generated inside the mouth of a fish during suction feeding or take-off and landing in birds to understand the origin of flight.

My PhD was about the origin of flight. I studied the biomechanics of take-off and landing in zebra finches and diamond doves. I showed that the legs are crucial in bird locomotion, especially to propulse the bird into the air and to break during landing.

Birdsong for human(e) voices
Building efficient voice prostheses inspired from bird vocal system
Learning Planet Institute Elis