David Cohen is Professor at Sorbonne University and Head of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (AP-HP). Trained as both a psychiatrist and a neuroscientist, he has spent more than twenty years conducting research at the intersection of psychiatry, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

A graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, he earned a Master’s degree in Neuroscience from Pierre and Marie Curie University and the École Normale Supérieure in 1987, followed by a Medical Doctorate in 1992 before specializing in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. His early research focused on severe mood disorders in adolescents and the neurobiological mechanisms underlying developmental psychiatric conditions.

Throughout his career, he has developed a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to child psychopathology, grounded in the integration of medical sciences, neuroscience, and engineering. His collaboration with the Institute for Intelligent Systems and Robotics (ISIR) has led to pioneering research initiatives combining social signal processing, machine learning, and robotics to advance the understanding of human interactions and neurodevelopmental disorders.

His research primarily focuses on neurodevelopmental disorders, early-onset psychoses, complex psychiatric conditions in children and adolescents, and social and cognitive interactions. Within ISIR, he works closely with the Perception, Interaction and Social Robotics (PIRoS) team to develop innovative assessment and intervention tools based on artificial intelligence and social robotics.

Alongside his clinical and research activities, David Cohen leads several national and international programs dedicated to neurodevelopmental disorders. He is notably the founder of the IDEAL project, which aims to strengthen research, training, and clinical care in developmental disorders affecting children and adolescents. A Corresponding Member of the French National Academy of Medicine, he is widely recognized for his contributions to the emergence of a child psychiatry that integrates advances from digital sciences and engineering.