Giorgio MargaritondoCitizen of the USA and Switzerland, Giorgio Margaritondo was born in Rome, Italy, in 1946. He received the Laurea summa cum laude from the University of Rome in 1969. From 1969 he was an employee of the Italian National Research Council in Rome and Frascati and, in 1975-77, he was at Bell Laboratories in the USA. From 1978 to 1990, he was professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA; in 1984 he was nominated associate director for research of the Synchrotron Radiation Center of the same university. In 1990 he was nominated "professeur ordinaire" (full professor) at the EPFL; he directed the Institute of Applied Physics and the Physics Department. He was also a honorary faculty member at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. In 2001 he became Dean of the EPFL Faculty of Basic Sciences. In 2004 he was nominated Provost and he served until 2010, when he became Dean of Continuing Education, until his retirement from the EPFL in 2016 In addition to teaching general physics, his activity concerns the physics of semiconductors and superconductors (electronic states, surfaces and interfaces) and of biological systems; his main experimental techniques are electron spectroscopy and spectromicroscopy, x-ray imaging and scanning near-field microscopy, including experiments with synchrotron light and with free electron lasers. Author of more than 700 scientific publications and 9 books, he was also coordinator in 1995-98 of the scientific division of the Elettra synchrotron in Trieste. In 1997-2003 he was coordinator of the European Commission Round Table on synchrotron radiation, and then became president of the Council of the European Commission Integrated Initiative on Synchrotron and Free Electron Laser Science (IA-SFS and then ELISA), the largest network in the world in this domain. In 2011-15, he was Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Physics D (Applied Physics). He is currently vice-president of the council of the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI), and president of the Scientific and Technological Committee of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). He is Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Vacuum Society and Fellow and Chartered Physicist of the Institute of Physics.
César PulgarinProf. C. Pulgarin is Chemist from Lausanne University, Master in environmental chemistry from Geneva University, Ph D in synthesis bio-inspired of natural substances from Neuchâtel University. During his education he carried out several industrial trainings.
Since March 1989, he has been working at the EPFL where he is leader of the Advanced Oxidation Processes Group (GPAO) active in the development chemical, photochemical, electrochemical, ultrasonic processes, their coupling between them and with biological systems to degrade chemical and microbiological pollutants in water and air. He has an H index of 40 and he is the world most cited author in 1) TiO2 photo-assisted bacterial inactivation in water and 2) Coupling of photochemical and biological processes for pollutant degradation. He has been involved in ten African, South American and European international research projects. He has been Swiss representative in COST program 540.
Anne-Sophie ChauvinWeb of Science Researcher ID F-4905-2011
Google Scholar page: https://scholar.google.ch/citations?user=O_HhJUEAAAAJ&hl=fr&oi=ao
ORCID number is 0000-0001-9222-3866
Anne-Sophie Chauvin studied chemistry and biology at the university Paris V-René Descartes in France where she did a PhD in organic chemistry, working on mimetic complexes of the active site of Nitrile Hydratase, under the supervision of Prof. Jean-Claude Chottard. On 1999 she moved for 20 months to the University of Geneva, for a post-doctoral stay under the supervision of Prof. Alexandre Alexakis, where she focused on the determination of the absolute configuration of chiral alcohols using Organophosphorous Diamine Derivatizing Agents by 31P and 1H NMR Spectroscopy. On 2000 she joined the group of Prof Jean-Claude G. Bünzli and was appointed part-time lecturer in 2001, assuming teaching and research responsibilities. On 2006, she obtained the habilitation to direct research from the University René Descartes (HDR, Paris V, France) and since october 2007 she is Maître d'Enseignement et de Recherche at the EPFL. In 2010, she joigned the Laboratory for Photonics and Interfaces (LPI), headed by Pr. Michaël Graëtzel. Since the end of 2014, with the arrival of Dr Marinella Mazzanti at EPFL, she is back to lanthanide chemistry, dealing with coordination polymers.
Her research interests concern supramolecular chemistry with the design of ligands which form water soluble complexes with luminescent lanthanides in view of biological applications. She is also interested in the synthesis of ligands and polymers for the extraction of lanthanide ions with high selectivity, and in the development of invisibke inks. She also developed organic dyes for dyes sensitized solar cells DSSC. She is now focusing on coordination polymers with luminescent properties and catalytic activity.
Anne-Sophie Chauvin is involved in the teaching of General and Analytical Chemistry for students enrolled on first year in Pharmacy and Biology (UNIL): ex-cathedra courses (Chimie Générale et analytique I et II, approfondissement en chimie analytique pour pharmaciens) and exercices.
She is in charge of practical sessions for students enroled in chemistry, forensic sciences, pharmacy and biology.
She is elected at the FSB Faculty Council and was member of the EPFL Assembly (AE) for 6 years, until 2018.
She was member of the Management committee of the Cost CM 1006 action entitled Eufen: European F-Element Network.
She is Member of the Swiss Chemical Society (SCS) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). Lukas KühnLukas Kühn graduated in biochemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich. He received his PhD in 1979 for a thesis with Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl at the University of Lausanne. After postdoctoral work in Lausanne and with Frank Ruddle at Yale University, USA, he became group leader at ISREC in 1984, was promoted senior scientist in 1988 and EPFL Adjunct Professor (professeur titulaire) in June 2008.
Jean-Claude BünzliJean-Claude Bünzli was born in 1944. He earned a degree in chemical engineering in 1968 and a PhD in 1971 (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne) for his work on the kinetic behaviour of Nb and Ta pentachloride adducts. He spent two years at the University of British Columbia as a teaching postdoctoral fellow (photoelectron spectroscopy) and one year at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (physical organic chemistry).
Positions
He was appointed assistant-professor at the University of Lausanne in 1974 and started a research program on the spectrochemical properties of f-elements. He was promoted as a full professor of inorganic and analytical chemistry in 1980. He transferred to EPFL in 2001 where he directed the Laboratory of Lanthanide Supramolecular Chemistry until 2010.
From 2009 to 2013, he was World Class University Professor at Korea University (South Korea) helping developing a new research center for photovoltaics. In 20154-2015 he acted as visiting professor at FJIRSM (Fuzhou, Fujian), a laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
He presently holds the Dr Kennedy Wong Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Hong Kong Baptist University (3 months/year) and a position as Distinguished Scholar at University of Technology, Sydney (NSW, Australia, 1 month/year).
Administrative and reviewer duties
He acted as the elected Dean of the Faculty of Sciences (1990-1991) and as one of the elected Vice-Rectors of the University (1991-1995), in charge of students' affairs and of research programs in the field of biomedical sciences. He held a position of invited professor at the Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg in 1996 and at the Science University of Tokyo in 1998. In 1989, he founded the European Rare Earths and Actinide Society which coordinate international conferences in the field (cf. http://ereswww.epfl.ch).
He served as a World Bank Project Specialist within the framework of the Chinese Provincial Universities Development Project (Northwest China, 1989) and as a member of a Panel in charge of evaluating chemical research at Norwegian universities (1997). In 2001, he was hired as "Peer leader" for the evaluation of the Swiss universities of applied sciences. In 2005, he acted as a member of the "Physical Inorganic Panel" of the Science Foundation of Ireland and in 2006 he was nominated to the "Chemistry Panel" of the same foundation.
He is a member of the Editorial Board of Spectroscopy Letters, associate editor-in-chief of the Journal of Rare Earths, and senior editor of the Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths (54 volumes published to date).
Teaching
Regarding teaching, he has directed the joint project of the universities of Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchâtel and Fribourg "General chemistry for students enrolled in a life sciences curriculum", within the frame of the "Swiss virtual campus", a program sponsored by the Conference of Swiss universities and the Swiss federal office for science and education (2000-2004). Web site: http://chimge@epfl.ch
Research
His research is centered on lanthanide luminescent molecular and supramolecular edifices, with main applications in biology & medicine. He is the author or the co-author of 350 research papers, 260 contributed communications and has presented 285 invited conferences, seminars, and courses. He has collected >22800 citations (h-index 72). Paul MuraltPaul Muralt received a diploma in experimental physics in 1978 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH in Zurich. He accomplished his Ph.D. thesis in the field of commensurate-incommensurate phase transitions at the Solid State Laboratory of ETH. In the years 1984 and 1985 he held a post doctoral position at the IBM Research Laboratory in Zurich where he pioneered the application of scanning tunneling microscopy to surface potential imaging. In 1987, after a stay at the Free University of Berlin, he joined the Balzers group in Liechtenstein. He specialized in sputter deposition techniques, and managed since 1991 a department for development and applications of Physical Vapor Deposition and PECVD processes. In 1993, he joined the Ceramics Laboratory of EPFL in Lausanne. AS group leader for thin films and MEMS devices, he specialized in piezoelectric and pyroelectric MEMS with mostly Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 and AlN thin film. His research interests are in thin film growth in general, and more specifically in property assessment of small ferroelectric structures, in integration issues of ferroelectric and other polar materials, property-microstructure relationships, and applications of polar materials in semiconductor and micro-electro-mechanical devices. More recently he extended his interests to oxide thin films of ionic conductors. The focus in piezoelectric thin films was directed towards AlN-ScN alloys. He gives lectures in thin film processing, micro fabrication, and surface analysis. He authored or co-authored more than 230 scientific articles. He became Fellow of IEEE in 2013. In 2005, he received an outstanding achievement award at the International Symposium on Integrated Ferroelectrics (ISIF), and in 2016 the B.C. Sawyer Memorial award.
Chairman of the International Workshops on Piezoelectric MEMS(http://www.piezomems2011.org/) Heinrich HofmannOriginaire de Mellingen (AG), Heinrich Hofmann est né en 1953. Après des études d'ingénieur en soudures (Ing. grad.) à Duisburg (D), et d'ingénieur en science des matériaux à la Technische Hochschule de Berlin, il obtient le titre de docteur ingénieur en 1983 pour une thèse dans le domaine des matériaux.De 1983 à 1985, il travaille comme assistant scientifique au Laboratoire de Technologie des Poudres de l'Institut Max Planck pour la science des matériaux à Stuttgart. En 1985 il entre au Centre de Recherche et Développement d'Alusuisse-Lonza à Neuhausen-am-Rheinfall, en tant qu'ingénieur consacré à la recherche dans l'étude et le développement des procédés de synthèse des poudres céramiques.En 1993 il entre à l'EPFL en tant que professeur extraordinaire et directeur du Laboratoire de technologie des poudres du Départmeent des matériaux. Son enseignement porte sur les céramiques I (procédés) et les phénomènes de transfert. Son domaine de recherche couvre la synthèse des poudres minérales, leur caractérisation et la modification des surfaces, ainsi que la mise en forme et le frittage. Ses recherches incluent aussi les matériaux nanostructurés (composites semi-conducteurs et polymères) et la métallurgie des poudres. Hofmann Heinrich, Prof. Dr.-Ing. got his PhD in Material Science with a thesis prepared at the Powder Metallurgy Laboratory at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart. In 1985 he joins the R&D center of Alusuisse-Lonza Services AG, at Neuhausen-am-Rheinfall. In 1993 he joins the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology as Professor and Director of the Powder Technology Laboratory at the Department of Materials science and engineering. His research area includes the synthesis of nanostructured materials based on nanoparticles and the modification of surfaces with nanoparticles using colloidal methods. The fields of application of such materials are medical and biological, (drug delivery, hyperthermia, cell separation, biosensors), electronics and sensors.