He is a member of the editorial board of Cybergéo and Imago Mundi, and known for his work on the history of statistical graphics and thematic mapping in the 19th century.

In 2003 he obtained his habilitation at the Paris 12 Val de Marne University with a thesis, entitled "L'esprit des cartes.

He was member of the Management Board the Faculty of Humanities and Science at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University, and director of specific research "Territories, Representation, Actors" in the urbanism master program from 2005 to 2007.

Palsky is a founding member of the OUCARPO (OUvroir de CArtographie POtentielle), an initiative around mapping potential.

He traced back the history of quantitative mapping methods, and looked into the reasons for their late adoption in geography.