Henry MarkramHenry Markram started a dual scientific and medical career at the University of Cape Town, in South Africa. His scientific work in the 80s revealed the polymodal receptive fields of pontomedullary reticular formation neurons in vivo and how acetylcholine re-organized these sensory maps.
He moved to Israel in 1988 and obtained his PhD at the Weizmann Institute where he discovered a link between acetylcholine and memory mechanisms by being the first to show that acetylcholine modulates the NMDA receptor in vitro studies, and thereby gates which synapses can undergo synaptic plasticity. He was also the first to characterize the electrical and anatomical properties of the cholinergic neurons in the medial septum diagonal band.
He carried out a first postdoctoral study as a Fulbright Scholar at the NIH, on the biophysics of ion channels on synaptic vesicles using sub-fractionation methods to isolate synaptic vesicles and patch-clamp recordings to characterize the ion channels. He carried out a second postdoctoral study at the Max Planck Institute, as a Minerva Fellow, where he discovered that individual action potentials propagating back into dendrites also cause pulsed influx of Ca2 into the dendrites and found that sub-threshold activity could also activated a low threshold Ca2 channel. He developed a model to show how different types of electrical activities can divert Ca2 to activate different intracellular targets depending on the speed of Ca2 influx an insight that helps explain how Ca2 acts as a universal second messenger. His most well known discovery is that of the millisecond watershed to judge the relevance of communication between neurons marked by the back-propagating action potential. This phenomenon is now called Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP), which many laboratories around the world have subsequently found in multiple brain regions and many theoreticians have incorporated as a learning rule. At the Max-Planck he also started exploring the micro-anatomical and physiological principles of the different neurons of the neocortex and of the mono-synaptic connections that they form - the first step towards a systematic reverse engineering of the neocortical microcircuitry to derive the blue prints of the cortical column in a manner that would allow computer model reconstruction.
He received a tenure track position at the Weizmann Institute where he continued the reverse engineering studies and also discovered a number of core principles of the structural and functional organization such as differential signaling onto different neurons, models of dynamic synapses with Misha Tsodyks, the computational functions of dynamic synapses, and how GABAergic neurons map onto interneurons and pyramidal neurons. A major contribution during this period was his discovery of Redistribution of Synaptic Efficacy (RSE), where he showed that co-activation of neurons does not only alter synaptic strength, but also the dynamics of transmission. At the Weizmann, he also found the tabula rasa principle which governs the random structural connectivity between pyramidal neurons and a non-random functional connectivity due to target selection. Markram also developed a novel computation framework with Wolfgang Maass to account for the impact of multiple time constants in neurons and synapses on information processing called liquid computing or high entropy computing.
In 2002, he was appointed Full professor at the EPFL where he founded and directed the Brain Mind Institute. During this time Markram continued his reverse engineering approaches and developed a series of new technologies to allow large-scale multi-neuron patch-clamp studies. Markrams lab discovered a novel microcircuit plasticity phenomenon where connections are formed and eliminated in a Darwinian manner as apposed to where synapses are strengthening or weakened as found for LTP. This was the first demonstration that neural circuits are constantly being re-wired and excitation can boost the rate of re-wiring.
At the EPFL he also completed the much of the reverse engineering studies on the neocortical microcircuitry, revealing deeper insight into the circuit design and built databases of the blue-print of the cortical column. In 2005 he used these databases to launched the Blue Brain Project. The BBP used IBMs most advanced supercomputers to reconstruct a detailed computer model of the neocortical column composed of 10000 neurons, more than 340 different types of neurons distributed according to a layer-based recipe of composition and interconnected with 30 million synapses (6 different types) according to synaptic mapping recipes. The Blue Brain team built dozens of applications that now allow automated reconstruction, simulation, visualization, analysis and calibration of detailed microcircuits. This Proof of Concept completed, Markrams lab has now set the agenda towards whole brain and molecular modeling.
With an in depth understanding of the neocortical microcircuit, Markram set a path to determine how the neocortex changes in Autism. He found hyper-reactivity due to hyper-connectivity in the circuitry and hyper-plasticity due to hyper-NMDA expression. Similar findings in the Amygdala together with behavioral evidence that the animal model of autism expressed hyper-fear led to the novel theory of Autism called the Intense World Syndrome proposed by Henry and Kamila Markram. The Intense World Syndrome claims that the brain of an Autist is hyper-sensitive and hyper-plastic which renders the world painfully intense and the brain overly autonomous. The theory is acquiring rapid recognition and many new studies have extended the findings to other brain regions and to other models of autism.
Markram aims to eventually build detailed computer models of brains of mammals to pioneer simulation-based research in the neuroscience which could serve to aggregate, integrate, unify and validate our knowledge of the brain and to use such a facility as a new tool to explore the emergence of intelligence and higher cognitive functions in the brain, and explore hypotheses of diseases as well as treatments.
Pierre VandergheynstPierre Vandergheynst received the M.S. degree in physics and the Ph.D. degree in mathematical physics from the Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, in 1995 and 1998, respectively. From 1998 to 2001, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Signal Processing Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland. He was Assistant Professor at EPFL (2002-2007), where he is now a Full Professor of Electrical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Computer and Communication Sciences. As of 2015, Prof. Vandergheynst serves as EPFL’s Vice-Provost for Education. His research focuses on harmonic analysis, sparse approximations and mathematical data processing in general with applications covering signal, image and high dimensional data processing, computer vision, machine learning, data science and graph-based data processing. He was co-Editor-in-Chief of Signal Processing (2002-2006), Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (2007-2011), the flagship journal of the signal processing community and currently serves as Associate Editor of Computer Vision and Image Understanding and SIAM Imaging Sciences. He has been on the Technical Committee of various conferences, serves on the steering committee of the SPARS workshop and was co-General Chairman of the EUSIPCO 2008 conference. Pierre Vandergheynst is the author or co-author of more than 70 journal papers, one monograph and several book chapters. He has received two IEEE best paper awards. Professor Vandergheynst is a laureate of the Apple 2007 ARTS award and of the 2009-2010 De Boelpaepe prize of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium.
Michael Christoph GastparMichael Gastpar is a (full) Professor at EPFL. From 2003 to 2011, he was a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, earning his tenure in 2008.
He received his Dipl. El.-Ing. degree from ETH Zürich, Switzerland, in 1997 and his MS degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA, in 1999. He defended his doctoral thesis at EPFL on Santa Claus day, 2002. He was also a (full) Professor at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.
His research interests are in network information theory and related coding and signal processing techniques, with applications to sensor networks and neuroscience.
He is a Fellow of the IEEE. He is the co-recipient of the 2013 Communications Society & Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award. He was an Information Theory Society Distinguished Lecturer (2009-2011). He won an ERC Starting Grant in 2010, an Okawa Foundation Research Grant in 2008, an NSF CAREER award in 2004, and the 2002 EPFL Best Thesis Award. He has served as an Associate Editor for Shannon Theory for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (2008-11), and as Technical Program Committee Co-Chair for the 2010 International Symposium on Information Theory, Austin, TX.
Marco MattavelliTeaching & PhD Past EPFL PhD Students Christophe Clerc, Ruohua Zhou, Beilu Shao, Christophe Lucarz, Richard Thavot, Ab Al Hadi Bin Ab Rahman, Endri Bezati, Simone Casale Brunet, Malgorzata Michalska, Ana Angelica Hernandez Lopez, Aurélien Bloch, Mustafa Besirli, Ünsal Öztürk Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Sylvain Aguirre Courses Systems and architectures for signal processing EE-555 Study of the essential components and implementation technologies of digital signal processing and commu
Niels QuackProf. Dr. Niels Quack received the M.Sc. degree from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2005, and the Dr.Sc. degree from Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH), Zürich, Switzerland, in 2010. From 2011 to 2015, he was Postdoctoral Researcher and Visiting Scholar with the Integrated Photonics Laboratory, Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. From 2014 to 2015, he was Senior MEMS Engineer with Sercalo Microtechnology, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He is currently an SNSF Assistant Professor with Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland. He has authored and co-authored more than 50 papers in leading technical journals and conferences. His research interests include photonic micro and nanosystems, with an emphasis on diamond photonics and silicon photonic MEMS. He is Steering Committee Member of the IEEE International Conference on Optical MEMS and Nanophotonics (OMN) and served as General Chair of the IEEE OMN 2018 and the Latsis Symposium 2019 on Diamond Photonics. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, Member of The Optical Society (OSA) and life member of SPIE.
Katrin BeyerSince 2017 Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), EPFL. Head of the Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics (EESD) Laboratory
2010-2017 Assistant Professor, EPFL.
2008-2010 Post-doctoral researcher, ETH Zürich.
2003-2007 Ph.D., Roseschool / Università di Pavia, Italy.
2001-2003 Ove Arup & Partners, Advanced Technology and Research Group, London.
2001 Diploma, Civil engineering, ETH Zürich.
Alain NussbaumerExpertise
Metallic structuresStructural glassFatigue and fracture mechanicsAssessment of existing structuresUltra low cycle
Teaching & PhD Past EPFL PhD Students Luís Costa Borges, Claire Acevedo, Nariman Maddah, Farshid Zamiri Akhlaghi, Manuel Santarsiero, Luca D'Angelo, Cláudio Alexandre Pereira Baptista, Albano António Sousa, Jagoda Cupac, Ardalan Hosseini, Martin Garcia, Hossein Heydarinouri, Jian Zhan Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Marina Rocha Courses Design of steel structures CIVIL-2
Sabine SüsstrunkProf. Dr. Sabine Süsstrunk leads the Image and Visual Representation Lab in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC) at EPFL since 1999. From 2015-2020, she was also the first Director of the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI), College of Humanities (CdH). Her main research areas are in computational photography, computational imaging, color image processing and computer vision, machine learning, and computational image quality and aesthetics. Sabine has authored and co-authored over 200 publications, of which 7 have received best paper/demo awards, and holds over 10 patents. Sabine served as chair and/or committee member in many international conferences on image processing, computer vision, and image systems engineering. She is President of the Swiss Science Council SSC, Founding Member and Member of the Board (President 2014-2018) of the EPFL-WISH (Women in Science and Humanities) Foundation, Member of the Board of the SRG SSR (Swiss Radio and Television Corporation), and Member of the Board of Largo Films. She received the IS&T/SPIE 2013 Electronic Imaging Scientist of the Year Award for her contributions to color imaging, computational photography, and image quality, and the 2018 IS&T Raymond C. Bowman and the 2020 EPFL AGEPoly IC Polysphere Awards for excellence in teaching. Sabine is a Fellow of IEEE and IS&T.
Paolo GermanoFORMATION
Mars 1990 : Engagement au Laboratoire d'électromécanique et de machines électriques (LEME), devenu entre temps le laboratoire d'actionneurs intégrés (LAI), comme assistant puis comme fonctionnaire scientifique.
Janvier 1990 : Diplôme d'ingénieur EPF en microtechnique.
Juillet 1985 : Maturité de type scientifique.
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- EXPERIENCES ET DOMAINES DE COMPETENCES
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Modélisation et simulation de l'alimentation des moteurs de l'avion Solar Impulse sur la base des résultats de la modélisation par éléments finis (FEM) de la structure magnétique Développement du banc de mesure (mécanique et software) du moteur Solar Impulse (dès mars 2004);
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Dans le cadre d'un Projet CTI en collaboration avec l'entreprise Medtronic (Projet ColoStim), développement d'un appareil de traitement de la constipation consistant en des électrodes implantées le long du colon et alimentées par induction, à haute fréquence, à l'aide d'une bobine primaire placée autour du thorax du patient (janvier 2006 - mars 2007);
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Développement du modèle équivalent d'une montre à glace tactile et analyse de l'effet des décharges électrostatiques sur cette montre. Projet CTI en collaboration avec l'entreprise ETA-Swatch Group (avril 2003 à octobre 2004);
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Développement d'un système de transfert d'énergie pour navettes automotrices de machines d'assemblage. Projet CTI en collaboration avec l'entreprise Montech AG (octobre 2001 à octobre 2002);
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Développement d'une installation de transfert d'énergie pour des wagonnets de transport de rouleaux pour l'industrie du papier avec l'entreprise Valmet AG (Groupe Metso Paper) (2001);
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Développement d'un banc de mesure pour actionneurs linéaires dans le cadre d'un mandat avec l'entreprise Sonceboz SA (mars 1998 - juillet 2000);
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Développement d'une installation de transfert d'énergie pour un convoyeur d'outils dans le cadre d'un mandat avec l'entreprise MCM SpA (Italie) (juillet 1998 avril 1999 et déc. 1999 avril 2000);
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Développement d'un banc de test pour vibreur électromécanique dans le cadre d'un mandat avec l'entreprise ASULAB SA à Marin (octobre décembre 1999);
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Développement et responsabilité d'une installation de démonstration d'un Système de transport automatique à transmission d'énergie par induction - Projet Serpentine 2 PSEL (déc. 1996 juin 1999);
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Développement d'un banc de mesure et d'analyse pour moteurs à courant continu dans le cadre d'un projet d'impulsion RAVEL (sept. 1995 - mars 1997);
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Développement d'un convertisseur de fréquence à résonance de 2,4 kW pour l'alimentation d'un transformateur sans fer dans le cadre du transfert d'énergie sans contacts Projet Serpentine PSEL (février 94 déc. 1995);
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Développement d'un banc de mesure pour moteurs pas à pas dans le cadre d'un mandat avec l'entreprise Sonceboz SA (mars 1992 nov. 1995);
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Développement d'un convertisseur direct de fréquence AC/AC de basse puissance dans le cadre du projet du cur artificiel Suisse (mars 1990 - mars 1992);
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Suivi d'une vingtaine de projets de semestre et de master EPFL;
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Divers projets de moindre envergure (alimentations, démonstrateurs, acquisitions de données, micro-informatique, circuits imprimés).
PUBLICATIONS
DOMAINE DU TRANSFERT D'ENERGIE PAR INDUCTION
M. Jufer, L. Cardoletti, B. Arnet, P. Germano, Ch. Koechli, N. Macabray, M. Perrottet, "Dispositif de transmission d'énergie électrique à un véhicule, sans contact, par induction - Projet PSEL N° 16 - Magnéto-glisseur", Rapport de synthèse 1995, EPFL-DE-LEME, Lausanne - Suisse, 18 octobre 1995;
M. Jufer, L. Cardoletti, P. Germano, B. Arnet, M. Perrottet, N. Macabrey, "Induction Contactless Energy Transmission System for an Electric Vehicle", ICEM96, International Conference on Electrical Machines, Vigo, Sept. 10-12, 1996, Vol II, pp. 343-347;
P. Germano, M. Jufer, "Contactless power transmission: Frequency tuning by a maximum power tracking method", EPE '97, 7th European Conference on power electronics and applications, Trondheim, Sept. 8-10, 1997, Vol IV, pp. 693-697;
M. Jufer, L. Cardoletti, P. Germano, B. Arnet, M. Perrottet, Swiss Federal Institute of Techno-logy, DE-LEME, 1015 Lausanne, Switzer-land, "Inductively powered automatic vehicles - Ser-pen-tine", EVS-15 '98, 15th International Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exhibition, Brussel, Belgium, Sept. 29 - Oct. 3, 1998, pp. 403-404;
P. Germano, Nicolas Macabrey, M. Jufer, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, DE-LEME, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, "Contactless Power Transmission: Linear Positioning of the Moving Element", EPE '99, 8th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, Lausanne, 7-9 September, 1999, Art Nb 685;
P. Germano, M. Jufer, L. Cardoletti, B. Arnet, Ch. Koechli, N. Macabray, M. Perrottet, "Système de transport automatique à transmission d'énergie par induction. - Projet PSEL N° 115", Rapport final 1999, EPFL-DE-LEME, Lausanne - Suisse, 31 août 1999;
P. Germano, I. Stefanini, W. Montella, L. Cardoletti, Y. Perriard, "Système de transfert d'énergie pour navette de machines d'assemblage Projet CTI n° 5780.1 KTS", Rapport final, EPF Lausanne-LAI, Suisse, mars 2004;
I. Stefanini, P. Germano, L. Cardoletti, W. Montella, Y. Perriard, "Inductive Charge System for Assembly Plant Shuttles", CD-ROM, EPE 2003, Toulouse, (France), 2-4 Septembre 2003;
P. Germano, I. Stefanini, Y. Perrirad, "Stimulation colique pour le traitement des troubles de la motilité Projet ColoStim Projet CTI n° 7362.2 LSPP-LS", Rapport final, EPF Lausanne-LAI, Suisse, mai 2007.
DOMAINES DES BANCS DE MESURE - MESURES
P. Germano, "Système automatique de mesure", Rapport technique vol. I & II, EPF-Lausanne, 1995;
P. Germano, Ch. Kuert, "Banc de mesures automatisé pour entraînements électriques", Présentation et mode d'emploi, EPF-Lausanne, 1997;
P. Germano, Ch. Kuert, M. Jufer, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, DE-LEME, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, "Automated test bench for electric drives: Modular layout of soft- and hardware", EPE '99, 8th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, Lausanne, 7-9 September, 1999, Art Nb 683;
Y. Perriard, P. Germano, I. Verettaz, "Banc de test pour vibreur électromécanique", Rapport technique, EPF-Lausanne, janvier 2000;
P. Germano, Ch. Kuert, M. Jufer, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, DE-LEME, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, "DSP controlled automated Test Bench for linear Actuators Design and Choices", EPE 2001, 9th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, Graz, 27-29 August, 2001, Art Nb 709;
P. Germano, M. Crivii, D. Demarco, Y. Perriard, Swiss Federal Instutute of Technology, LAI, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland & L. Paratte, R. Marquis, Service Unit RD, ETA SA (Swatch Group), 2540 Granges, Switzerland, "Analysis and Modeling of Electrostatic Discharge in a Tactile Glass Featured Watch", IAS 2004, 39th Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, USA, October 3-7, 2004;
P. Germano, M. Crivii, D. Demarco, Y. Perriard, Swiss Federal Instutute of Technology, LAI, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland & L. Paratte, R. Marquis, Service Unit RD, ETA SA (Swatch Group), 2540 Granges, Switzerland, "Analysis and Modeling of Electrostatic Discharge in a Tactile Glass Featured Watch", IEEE Transaction on Industry Applications, Volume 43, Issue 4, July-aug. 2007, Page(s): 1091-1098; Yves PerriardYves Perriard was born in Lausanne in 1965. He received the M. Sc. in Microengineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Lausanne (EPFL) in 1989 and the Ph D. degree in 1992. Co-founder of Micro-Beam SA, he was CEO of this company involved in high precision electric drive. Senior lecturer from 1998 and professor since 2003, he is currently director of Laboratory of Integrated Actuators. His research interests are in the field of new actuator design and associated electronic devices. In 2009, he is appointed Vice-Director of the Microengineering Institute in Neuchâtel until 2011. In 2013 the Federal Council has named him the the CTI commission in Bern. In 2014 he is appointed guest professor at Zhejiang University in China. In 2017, the lab is granted by the Werner Siemens Foundation of an amount of 12 millions CHF in order to set up a new Center for Artificial Muscules. Since 2018, he is Expert with Innosuisse, the new Swiss Innovation Agency. http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=fr&user=V2onuO8AAAAJ https://actu.epfl.ch/news/a-12-million-franc-donation-to-create-a-center-for/ Edgard Gnansounou
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1983 Ing. Civil EPFL
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1991 Dr ès Sciences techniques, EPFL
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Directeur du Laboratoire de systèmes énergétiques (LASEN) de 2003 à 2008
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Dès 2008, Responsable du groupe de Recherche en Bioénergie et Planification énergétique
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Co-fondateur du bureau d'étude ENERS Energy Concept
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Président de la Fondation SUD (Solidarités Universitaires pour le Développement)
Je suis membre de différentes associations professionnelles parmi lesquelles figuent le Conseil Mondial de l'énergie (CME) et l'Association internationale pour l'économie de l'énergie (AIEE). Comme membre du groupe d'étude du CME sur les vulnérabilités, j'ai développé les métriques utilisées pour évaluer la vulnérabilité énergétique des pays industrialisés.
Depuis janvier 2008 : membre du Comité d'édition du journal international Bioresource Technology.
Depuis 2009: membre du Comité de la "European Biofuels Technology Platform" Radhakrishna AchantaExpertise
Image Processing, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning
Radhakrishna Achanta has a PhD in computer science from EPFL, an MSc from NUS, Singapore, and a BEng from India. He has over 20 years of industrial and academic experience in the capacities of an individual contributor as well as a manager. His domains of expertise are Computer Vision, Image Processing, and Machine Learning. He has authored over 50 peer reviewed papers and patents, which have more than 23’000 citations. He has co-founded 4 st
