Berend SmitBerend Smit received an MSc in Chemical Engineering in 1987 and an MSc in Physics both from the Technical University in Delft (the Netherlands). He received in 1990 cum laude PhD in Chemistry from Utrecht University (the Netherlands). He was a (senior) Research Physicists at Shell Research from 1988-1997, Professor of Computational Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) 1997-2007.
In 2004 Berend Smit was elected Director of the European Center of Atomic and Molecular Computations (CECAM) Lyon France. Since 2007 he is Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at U.C. Berkeley and Faculty Chemist at Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Since 2014 he has been director of the Energy Center at EPFL.
Shaik Mohammed ZakeeruddinTeaching & PhD Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Magdalena Anna Marszalek, Jiyoun Seo, Marko Stojanovic, Natalie Flores Diaz, Anwar Qasem M Alanazi, Thomas Paul Baumeler, Essa Awadh R Alharbi, Masaud Hassan S Almalki
Lothar HelmTeaching & PhD Past EPFL PhD Students Oleg Yazyev, Loïck Moriggi, Gabriella Eva Bodizs, Hugues Jaccard, Bibimaryam Mousavi, Shima Karimi, Estel Canet Martinez Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Meriem Benmelouka, Estel Canet Martinez
Florence PojerExpertise
MER and Head of Unit - Protein Production and Structure Reseach Core Facility within the Life Sciences School - PTPSP: Expertise in Integrative protein Structural Biology (mainly X-ray Crystallography and Cryo-EM) and production of macromolecules in mammalian and bacterial cells. Innovate4Life team member at SV: i4L supports the next generation of entrepreneurs through education, mentorship, and funding, to translate life sciences discoveries into technologies that benefit society. Education and
Mohammad Khaja NazeeruddinDr. Md. K. Nazeeruddin received M.Sc. and Ph. D. in inorganic chemistry from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. He joined as a Lecturer in Deccan College of Engineering and Technology, Osmania University in 1986, and subsequently, moved to Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar, as a Research Associate. He was awarded the Government of Indias fellowship in 1987 for study abroad. In 2014, EPFL awarded him the title of Professor. His current research at EPFL focuses on Dye Sensitized Solar Cells, Perovskite Solar Cells, CO2 reduction, Hydrogen production, and Light-emitting diodes. He has published more than 509 peer-reviewed papers, ten book chapters, and he is inventor/co-inventor of over 50 patents. The high impact of his work has been recognized by invitations to speak at over 130 international conferences, and has been nominated to the OLLA International Scientific Advisory Board. He appeared in the ISI listing of most cited chemists, and has more than 49'000 citations with an h-index of 105. He is teaching "Functional Materials" course at EPFL, and Korea University; directing, and managing several industrial, national, and European Union projects. He was awarded EPFL Excellence prize in 1998 and 2006, Brazilian FAPESP Fellowship in 1999, Japanese Government Science & Technology Agency Fellowship, in 1998, Government of India National Fellowship in 1987-1988. Recently he has been appointed as World Class University (WCU) professor by the Korea University, Jochiwon, Korea (http://dses.korea.ac.kr/eng/sub01_06_2.htm), Adjunct Professor by the King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Eminent Professor in Brunei. Jean-François MolinariProfessor J.F. Molinari is the director of the Computational Solid Mechanics Laboratory (http://lsms.epfl.ch) at EPFL, Switzerland. He holds an appointment in the Civil Engineering institute, which he directed from 2013 to 2017, and a joint appointment in the Materials Science institute. He started his tenure at EPFL in 2007, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2012. He is currently an elected member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation in Division 2 (Mathematics, Natural and Engineering Sciences), and co editor in chief of the journal Mechanics of Materials. J.F. Molinari graduated from Caltech, USA, in 2001, with a M.S. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics. He held professorships in several countries besides Switzerland, including the United States with a position in Mechanical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University (2000-2006), and France at Ecole Normale Supérieure Cachan in Mechanics (2005-2007), as well as a Teaching Associate position at the Ecole Polytechnique de Paris (2006-2009). The work conducted by Prof. Molinari and his collaborators takes place at the frontier between traditional disciplines and covers several length scales from atomistic to macroscopic scales. Over the years, Professor Molinari and his group have been developing novel multiscale approaches for a seamless coupling across scales. The activities of the laboratory span the domains of damage mechanics of materials and structures, nano- and microstructural mechanical properties, and tribology. Guillaume AnciauxResearchResearch Topics My research can be decomposed in three main blocks:First, the main goal of my current research is the physical description of contact interactions. I performed numerous studies of this topic using different models from the continuum scale down to atomistic scale. Since atomic phenomena and macroscopic observations are linked, the physics of contact needs the simultaneous consideration of several scales. For instance, plasticity is a theory defined for the macroscopic scale whereas t
Hanna Christine TürkHanna Türk graduated in Chemistry from the Technical University of Munich in 2018. For her PhD, she joined the group of Prof. Karsten Reuter at the Fritz-Haber-Institute der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Berlin to work on the simulation and generation of solid/solid interfaces with Monte-Carlo and generative models. She joined COSMO as a Postdoc in April 2023 and is now working on solid state lithium ion battery materials.
Nikita KavokineTeaching & PhD PhD Students Lucas Bertrand Théo Floquet, Killian David Rigaux, Hao Lu, Peter Gispert, Léa Zupan Courses Nanofluidics CH-461 This course introduces the modern theoretical tools that underpin the understanding of solid-liquid interfaces and fluid flows through nanometer-scale openings. Physical Chemistry Seminar 1: Trends CH-643 Students can learn about the broader research in Phyiscal Chemistry and broaden their horizon beyond their own field by listening to
Sandrine GerberSandrine Gerber studied chemistry at the "Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris" in France, where she obtained a diploma of chemical engineer in 1993. The same year she obtained a DEA (Master degree) of organic chemistry at the University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI, France). From 1993 to 1996 she did a PhD in organic chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Jean-Pierre Genêt at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris. In 1996, she moved to University of Lausanne for a post-doctoral stay under the supervision of Prof. Pierre Vogel. In 1998, she was appointed Maître-Assistante at the Institute of Organic Chemistry in the University of Lausanne. In 2003, she obtained the habilitation to direct research from the University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI, France). The same year, she was appointed scientific adjunct at the EPFL and senior scientist (Maître d'Enseignement et de Recherche) in 2006. In December 2014, she was promoted to titular professor. Since September 2007, Sandrine Gerber is deputy to the director of the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering (ISIC). She is also member of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Chemical Society. Since 2007, Sandrine Gerber is part-time lecturer at the university of Fribourg. She was awarded the Prize Eugene Schueller in 1997, the Prize Dufour for prospective organic chemistry in 2005 and the Werner Prize 2010. She also received a special mention in recognition of exceptional quality of pedagogic competencies in the teaching of basic sciences, given by the Direction of the School of Biology and Medicine from the University of Lausanne, in 2013. In October 2018, she will receive the Prize for Excellence in Teaching from the section of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
Dario FloreanoProf. Dario Floreano is director of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). Since 2010, he is the founding director of the Swiss National Center of Competence in Robotics, a research program that brings together more than 20 labs across Switzerland. Prof. Floreano holds an M.A. in Vision, an M.S. in Neural Computation, and a PhD in Robotics. He has held research positions at Sony Computer Science Laboratory, at Caltech/JPL, and at Harvard University. His main research interests are Robotics and A.I. at the convergence of biology and engineering. Prof. Floreano made pioneering contributions to the fields of evolutionary robotics, aerial robotics, and soft robotics. He served in numerous advisory boards and committees, including the Future and Emerging Technologies division of the European Commission, the World Economic Forum Agenda Council, the International Society of Artificial Life, the International Neural Network Society, and in the editorial committee of several scientific journals. In addition, he helped spinning off two drone companies (senseFly.com and Flyability.com) and a non-for-profit portal on robotics and A.I. (RoboHub.org). Books
Manuale sulle Reti Neurali, il Mulino (in Italian), 1996 (first edition), 2006 (second edition)Evolutionary Robotics, MIT Press, 2000
Bio-Inspired Artificial Intelligence, MIT Press, 2008
Flying Insects and Robots, Springer Verlag, 2010
