Curriculum Vitae

Education

Inria / University of Bordeaux, Computer Science

Ph. D.

Talence, France

Sept 2018 – May 2022

Birkbeck, University of London, Cognition and Computation

M. Sc.

London, United Kingdom

Sept 2016 – Aug 2017

TMC Academy / University of Greenwich, Psychology with Counceling

B. Sc.

Singapore

Fall 2013 — Spring 2015

Experience

Hector Institute of Education Science and Psychology, Postdoc

Tübingen, Germany

June 2022 – present

Inria / Flowers Lab, Research Intern

Talence, France

Feb 2018 – Aug 2018

Self-employment, Software consultant

Remote

2016 — 2017

Developed interactive pedagogical tools for learning about connectionist networks (for "PSYCH 209: Neural Network Models of Cognition: Principles and Applications"

Publications and preprints

The Curious U: Integrating theories linking knowledge and information-seeking behavior

Oct 2025

Alexandr Ten, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Michiko Sakaki, Kou Murayama

https://doi.org/10.1162/OPMI.a.41 (Open Mind)

In search of lost memories: Modeling exploration with forgetful generalization

Oct 2025

Alexandr Ten, Michiko Sakaki, Sebastian Breit, Aswath Chandrasekaran, Kou Murayama, Charley M. Wu

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/hupq5_v1 (Preprint)

Role of metacognitive confidence judgments in curiosity: different effecst of confidence on curiosity across epistemic and perceptual domains

June 2024

Michiko Sakaki, Alexandr Ten, Hannah Stone, Kou Murayama

https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13474 (Cognitive Science )

Curiosity-driven exploration: Diversity of mechanisms and functions

May 2022

Alexandr Ten, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Clément Moulin-Frier

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026949 (The Drive for Knowledge: The Science of Human Information Seeking (Cambridge University Press))

Intrinsic rewards in human curiosity-driven exploration: An empirical study

July 2021

Alexandr Ten, Jacqueline Gottlieb, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer

escholarship.org/uc/item/13b6p5ms (Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, vol. 43)

Humans monitor learning progress in curiosity-driven exploration

Oct 2021

Alexandr Ten, Pramod Kaushik, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Jacqueline Gottlieb

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26196-w (Nature Communications)

Invited Talks and Presentations

Forgetful generalization and exploration

$$quad$$ • [Poster] Computational Psychiatry Conference (CPC) (July 2025)

$$quad$$ • [Poster] Tübingen pre-CogSci workshop (July 2025)

The Curious U Integrating Theories Linking Knowledge and Information-Seeking Behaviour

$$quad$$ • [Presentation] Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM) conference; PIMBAA workshop (June 2025)

$$quad$$ • [Invited talk] INRIA / Flowers Lab (April 2024)

$$quad$$ • [Invited talk] Tübingen AI Center / Human & Machine Cognition Lab (March 2024)

Humans monitor learning progress in curiosity-driven exploration

$$quad$$ • [Invited talk] Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (March 2023)

In search of origins of curiosity

$$quad$$ • [Poster] Tübingen Week on Education, Motivation, Meta-Cognition, Personality, and Self-Regulation (TEMMPS) (July 2024)

Memberships

LEAD Graduate School and Research Network: LEAD is a large and vibrant network of researchers, practitionares, and funding agencies in education. Link.

Postdoctoral Academy for Research on Education (PACE): PACE is a professional development organization aiming to help it's postdoc members acquire crucial skills in grant writing, applying for academic jobs, and networking. Link.

Curiosity in Development Hub (CiD): CiD is a grassroots organization for researchers interested in curiosity acr∂oss the lifespan. Here, I volunteer as a Communications Committee leader, which entails organization of regular newsletters and website/forum administration.

Skills

Languages∂: Julia, Python, R, JavaScript

Online experiments: JATOS, Labjs, jsPsych, Open Sesame, Prolific

Methods: computational modeling, frequentist and bayesian statistics

Reviewing activity

I have reviewed for Child Development, Cognition, CogSci Proceedings, Emotion, Nature Scientific Reports, and Peer Community In Registered Reports (PCI RR)

Supervision

As a Ph.D. candidate at INRIA, I supervised a master's thesis on "Remote experimentation to investigate the relationship between learning, intrinsic motivation and metacognition". As a postdoc at the Hector Institute, I supervised a bachelor's thesis of J. Thiele on "The effect of uncertainty on expected learning progress in curiosity-driven learning". At the Hector Institute, I am currently supervising a master's thesis on "Psychological mechanisms of state curiosity".