13 Chilean students selected for Inria Chile’s AI Research Internship Programme in France

Thirteen students from the Universidad de Chile, the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and  the Universidad de Concepción  were selected in the 2025–2026 call to take part in Inria Chile’s Research Internship Programme. hanks to this Programme, and with support from Inria and their respective universities, the students will carry out research internships within project-teams at various Inria centres in France during the first half of 2026.

To launch this stage, the students attended an in-person meeting at Inria Chile on 12 September, where they received an official welcome to this competitive Programme, practical information about the process now opening up for them, and details of the Programme’s benefits.

The day was also an opportunity to hear first-hand from Programme alumni, represented on this occasion by:

• Alonso Almendras: Master’s student in Computer Science at the University of Chile; completed his internship at the Inria Centre at the University of Bordeaux.

• Diego Maldonado: Graduate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Chile and PhD student at INSA Lyon; completed his internship at the Inria Centre at the University of Lyon.

• Pablo Rademacher: Master’s student in Mathematical and Computational Engineering at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; completed his internship at the Inria Centre at Université Côte d’Azur.

• Amaranta Salas: Master’s student in Data Science at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; completed her internship at the Inria Centre at the University of Lille (SPIRALS team).

The gathering was a convivial moment to meet and connect before embarking on this unique experience of joining a research team of scientific excellence in France.

The students will spend three months embedded in Inria project-teams, within an international, high-calibre research environment, supervised by researchers and specialist teams. They will contribute actively to new scientific results in digital sciences and technologies, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence — the Programme’s focus this year within the framework of the Franco-Chilean Binational Center on Artificial Intelligence.

Inria Centre at Saclay

• Valentina Alarcón, undergraduate student in Computer Engineering, University of Chile. Internship in the ILDA project-team, supervised by Vanessa Peña. Topic: Designing onboarding methods for complex climate visualisations.  

• Diana de la Costa, Master’s student in Business Engineering with Information Technologies, University of Chile. Internship in the AVIZ project-team, supervised by Petra Isenberg. Topic: Studying the readability of data visualisations.  

• Vicente Escobar, MSc student in Applied Mathematics, University of Chile. Internship in the PARMA project-team, supervised by Andrea Natale. Topic: Geometric regularisations of Wasserstein barycentres.  

• Sergio Rojas, Master’s student in Computer Science, University of Chile. Internship in the CEDAR project-team, supervised by Ioana Manolescu. Topic: Efficient parallel abstraction of heterogeneous data for AI-based exploration.  

Inria Centre at Université Côte d’Azur

• Paz Gatica, MSc student in Engineering (specialisation in Electrical Engineering), University of Concepción. Internship in the BIOVISION project-team, supervised by Bruno Cessac. Topic: Modelling experiments on the retinal network.  

• Ignacio Tapia, Master’s student in Engineering Sciences (specialisation in Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Internship in the GREENOWL project-team, supervised by Francesca Casagli. Topic: Hybrid modelling for microbial ecosystems.  

• Lucas Villagrán, Master’s student in Applied Mathematics, University of Chile. Internship in the CRONOS project-team, supervised by Rodrigo Cofré. Topic: Uncovering higher-order brain dynamics across consciousness states via fMRI data.  

Inria Centre in Paris

• Felipe Hernández, Master’s student in Data Science, University of Chile. Internship in the ALMANACH project-team, supervised by Djame Seddah. Topic: Towards self-adapting language models.  

• Simón Jaramillo, Master’s student in Engineering (Electrical Engineering), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Internship in the AIO project-team, supervised by Alfonso Cortés. Topic: Automated design of integrated circuits with open-source tools.  

Inria Centre at the University of Lyon

• Firenze Asencio, Master’s student in Astronomy, University of Concepción. Internship in the AT-LYS project-team, supervised by Elif Koksal. Topic: Chunking dynamics in sequential learning.  

Inria Centre at the University of Lille

• Benjamín Alvial, undergraduate student in Computer Engineering, University of Chile. Internship in the INOCS project-team, supervised by Luce Brotcorne. Topic: Design and implementation of a multi-market transport simulation framework.  

Inria Centre at the University of Bordeaux

• Omar Díaz, PhD student in Agronomy, University of Concepción. Research stay in the SISTM project-team, supervised by Marta Avalos. Topic: Penalised mixed-effects meta-regression to explore sources of heterogeneity in microbiome meta-analyses.  

Inria Centre at Université de Lorraine

• Etienne Cabiac, Master’s student in Engineering Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Internship in the LARSEN project-team, supervised by Serena Ivaldi. Topic: Vision-Language-Action for humanoid robots.