About me

My work lies at the intersection of several scientific disciplines, blending computer science, computational social science and complex systems. I currently work on consumption dynamics of cultural content on internet platforms, by combining digital traces of individual activity with survey and interview data. I lead several collaborative projects on this topic (see below), including RECORDS (2020-2024), a partnership between several CNRS social science units, Sciences Po Paris and the music streaming platform Deezer. We investigate the social and spatial diversity of listening habits and tastes, the circulation of new music, and the relationship between the music preferences people declared in surveys and their everyday streaming habits.

Publications

see https://cv.hal.science/tlouail

Research projects and grants

National projects

since 2024: MIXTAPES (mixed data and methods for the analysis of the listening dynamics on streaming platforms) is the joint research unit of the CNRS, Deezer, the EHESS and the universities Paris-Cité and Panthéon-Sorbonne

2024-27 : MELODYNAMICS (Spatial dyanmics of music discovery and propagation of novelties), funding by the CNRS initiative for interdisciplinary research (MITI), co-PI with Marc Barthelemy

2024-26 : DROM’n BASS (DROM, music streams database and spatial statistics), funding by the French Ministry of Culture, co-PI with Marion Maisonobe

2020-2025 : RECORDS (Users’ practices on music streaming platforms), funding by the French National research agency (ANR), project leader and PI at CNRS/Géographie-cités. See records.huma-num.fr

2021-2024 : MAMA “du Monde d’Avant au Monde d’Après” – Cultural and digital practices, funding by CNRS InSHS , co-PI with Philippe Coulangeon (CRIS), in partnership with the ELIPSS panel

International projects

2018-2022 : MOREHOUSE – Modeling hOusing maRkets dynamics thanks to Emerging and HeterOgeneoUs data SourcEs (funding by CSIC and CNRS), co-PI with Jose Javier Ramasco (IFISC)

Supervision of master’s and doctoral students, and postdoctoral fellows

Current PhD students

– Pierre Gallinari Safar (since 2024), co-advised with Camille Roth (CAMS)
– Célestin Zimmerlin (since 2024), co-advised with Marc Barthelemy (IPhT)

Previously

– Kristina Matrosova (2020-24) ‘Modeling and Influencing Music Preferences on Streaming Platforms’, co-advised with Olivier Bodini (Laboratoire d’Informatique de Paris Nord) and Manuel Moussallam (Deezer research)

Postdocs
– Anne-Cécile Ott (2023-24)
– Timothée Chabot (2023), now Associate professor in sociology at University Toulouse-Jean Jaurès
– Robin Cura (2020-22), now Associate professor in geography at University Panthéon-Sorbonne
– Paola Pasquali (2019-20)

PhD students
– Ryma Hachi (2017-2020) “Exploring the effect of street networks’ morphology on their accessibility conditions : an empirical approach based on graph theory“, co-advised with Lena Sanders (CNRS) and Sandrine Robert (EHESS). PhD manuscript available here.

Master students
– Alvin Opler (2022-23), now PhD student at CEA
– Myriam Boualami (2020-21), now PhD student at Centre Marc Bloch (Berlin, DE)
– Quentin Hirtzlin (2021)