Stewart ColeProfessor Stewart Cole is an international authority in bacterial molecular-genetics and genomics. He has made outstanding contributions in several fields including: bacterial anaerobic electron transport; genome analysis of retroviruses and papillomaviruses; antibiotic resistance mechanisms; and the molecular microbiology of toxigenic clostridia. His studies on isoniazid and multidrug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, together with his pioneering work on the pathogenicity, evolution and genomics of the tubercle and leprosy bacilli, have made him an undisputed leader in the field of mycobacterial research. The findings of his research are of direct relevance to public health and disease-control in both the developing world and the industrialised nations. He has published over 250 scientific papers and review articles, and holds many patents.
Yves BellouardDr. Yves Bellouard is Associate Professor in Microengineering at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, where he heads the Galatea lab and the Richemont Chair in micromanufacturing. He received a BS in Theoretical Physics and a MS in Applied Physics from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France in 1994-1995 and a PhD in Microengineering from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2000. For his PhD work, he received the Omega Scientific prize (2001) for outstanding contribution in the field of microengineering for his work on Shape Memory Alloys. Before joining EPFL in 2015, he was Associate Professor at Eindhoven University of Technologies (TU/e) in the Netherlands and prior to that, Research Scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York for about four years where he started working on femtosecond laser processing of glass materials. From 2010 until 2013, Yves Bellouard initiated and coordinated the Femtoprint project, a European research initiative aiming at investigating a table-top printer for microsystems ('3D printing of microsystems'). In 2013, he received a prestigious ERC Starting Grant (Consolidator-2012) from the European Research Council and a JSPS Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. His current research interests are on new paradigms for system integration at the microscale and in particular laser-based methods to tailor material properties for achieving higher level of integration in microsystems, like for instance integrating optics, mechanics and fluidics in a single monolith. These approaches open new opportunities for direct-write methods of microsystems (3D printing). Personal website
Simon Nessim HeneinBorn in 1973 and of Egyptian-Swiss nationality, Simon Henein grew up in Cairo. He obtained an engineering degree at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 1996 and went on to complete his doctorate at the EPFL in 2000. In 2001, he published the book “Conception des guidages flexibles” which has become a reference in precision engineering. He then joined the Centre Suisse d’Electronique et Microtechnique (CSEM), Neuchatel, Switzerland, where he conceived and developed mechanisms for robotic, aerospace, medical and watchmaking applications. He pursued his research career at the Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland, where he developed instruments for the Swiss Light Source Synchrotron (SLS). Since November 1st, 2012, he is associate professor in microengineering at the EPFL, holder of the Patek Philippe Chair and director of the Micromechanical and horological design laboratory (Instant-Lab).
Mathieu SalzmannI am a Senior Researcher at EPFL-CVLab, and, since May 2020, an Artificial Intelligence Engineer at ClearSpace (50%). Previously, I was a Senior Researcher and Research Leader in NICTA's computer vision research group. Prior to this, from Sept. 2010 to Jan 2012, I was a Research Assistant Professor at TTI-Chicago, and, from Feb. 2009 to Aug. 2010, a postdoctoral fellow at ICSI and EECS at UC Berkeley under the supervision of Prof. Trevor Darrell. I obtained my PhD in Jan. 2009 from EPFL under the supervision of Prof. Pascal Fua.
Auke IjspeertAuke Ijspeert is a full professor at the EPFL, and head of the Biorobotics Laboratory (BioRob). He has a B.Sc./M.Sc. in physics from the EPFL (1995), and a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh (1999). He carried out postdocs at IDSIA and EPFL, and at the University of Southern California (USC). He then became a research assistant professor at USC, and an external collaborator at ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research institute) in Japan. In 2002, he came back to the EPFL as an SNF assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in October 2009 and to full professor in April 2016. His primary affiliation is with the Institute of Bioengineering, and secondary affiliation with the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. His research interests are at the intersection between robotics, computational neuroscience, nonlinear dynamical systems, and machine learning. He is interested in using numerical simulations and robots to get a better understanding of sensorimotor coordination in animals, and in using inspiration from biology to design novel types of robots and adaptive controllers. (see for instance Ijspeert et al Science 2007, Ijspeert Science 2014, and Nyakatura et al Nature 2019). He is also investigating how to assist people with limited mobility using exoskeletons and assistive furniture. He is regularly invited to give talks on these topics (e.g. TED talk given at TED Global Geneva, Dec 8 2015). With his colleagues, he has received paper awards at ICRA2002, CLAWAR2005, IEEE Humanoids 2007, IEEE ROMAN 2014, CLAWAR 2015, SAB2018, and CLAWAR 2019. He is an IEEE Fellow, member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science magazine, and associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics and for the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics. He has acted as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (2009-2013) and for Soft Robotics (2018-2021). He was a guest editor for the Proceedings of IEEE, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Autonomous Robots, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, and Biological Cybernetics. He has been the organizer of 7 international conferences (BioADIT2004, SAB2004, AMAM2005, BioADIT2006, LATSIS2006, SSRR2016, AMAM2019), and a program committee member of over 50 conferences.
Francesco StellacciFrancesco Stellacci graduated in Materials Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano in 1998 with a thesis on photochromic polymers with Prof. Giuseppe Zerbi and Mariacarla Gallazzi. In 1999 he moved to the Chemistry Department of the University of Arizona for as a post-doc in the group of Joe Perry in close collaboration with the group of Seth Marder. In 2002 he moved to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an assistant professor. He was then promoted to associate without (2006) and with tenure (2009). In 2010 he moved to the Institute of Materials at EPFL as a full Professor. He holds the Alcan EP Chair. Francesco was one of the recipients of the Technology Review TR35 "35 Innovator under 35" award in 2005, and the Popular Science Magazine "Brilliant 10" award in 2007. He has been a Packard Fellow starting 2005.
Martin VetterliMartin Vetterli was appointed president of EPFL by the Federal Council following a selection process conducted by the ETH Board, which unanimously nominated him.
Professor Vetterli was born on 4 October 1957 in Solothurn and received his elementary and secondary education in Neuchâtel Canton. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from ETH Zurich (ETHZ) in 1981, a Master’s of Science degree from Stanford University in 1982, and a PhD from EPFL in 1986. Professor Vetterli taught at Columbia University as an assistant and then associate professor. He was subsequently named full professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California at Berkeley before returning to EPFL as a full professor at the age of 38. He has also taught at ETHZ and Stanford University.
Professor Vetterli has earned numerous national and international awards for his research in electrical engineering, computer science and applied mathematics, including the National Latsis Prize in 1996. He is a fellow of both the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a member the US National Academy of Engineering. He has published over 170 articles and three reference works.
Professor Vetterli’s work on the theory of wavelets, which are used in signal processing, is considered to be of major importance by his peers, and his areas of expertise, including image and video compression and self-organized communication systems, are central to the development of new information technologies. As the founding director of the National Centre of Competence in Research on Mobile Information and Communication Systems, Professor Vetterli is a staunch advocate of transdisciplinary research.
Professor Vetterli knows EPFL inside and out. An EPFL graduate himself, he began been teaching at the school in 1995, was vice president for International Affairs and then Institutional Affairs from 2004 to 2011, and served as dean of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences in 2011 and 2012. In addition to his role as president of the National Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation, a position he held from 2013 to 2016, he heads the EPFL’s Audiovisual Communications Laboratory (LCAV) since 1995.
Professor Vetterli has supported more than 60 students in Switzerland and the United States in their doctoral work and makes a point of following their highly successful careers, whether it is in the academic or business world.
He is the author of some 50 patents, some of which were the basis for start-ups coming out of his lab, such as Dartfish and Illusonic, while others were sold (e.g. Qualcomm) as successful examples of technology transfer. He actively encourages young researchers to market the results of their work.
Michaël UnserExpertise
Image Processing, Medical Imaging, Biological Imaging, Wavelets, Splines, Multiresolution
Michael Unser is Full Professor with EPFL’s school of Engineering and the academic director of EPFL's Center for Imaging, Lausanne, Switzerland. His primary areas of investigation are signal processing, biomedical imaging and applied functional analysis. He is internationally recognized for his research contributions to sampling theory, wavelets, the use of splines for image processing, stochastic processes,
Ronan BoulicI come from Brittany, France, where I have completed my PhD degree in Computer Science in 1986 from the University of Rennes, France, at the INRIA-IRISA research institute. I also received the Habilitation degree from the University of Grenoble, France, in march 1995. I was hired in 1989 as First Assistant in the VRLAB, I became scientific collaborator, and senior researcher. I'm presently Senior Scientist (MER) and leader of the Immersive Interaction research Group (IIG). I'm co-author of around 150 research papers among which 43 appeared in international peer-reviewed journals. I have contributed to multiple SNF projects and EU projects. Please check iig.epfl.ch for more details.
Karen ScrivenerDe nationalité anglaise, Karen Scrivener est née en 1958. Au cours de sa carrière, ses travaux et sa recherche traitaient des domaines suivants: Identification du développement microstucturale pendant l'hydratation du ciment. Elaboration d'une approche multitechnique pour étudier la microstucture des ciments et bétons, avec accent sur la quantification par analyse des images d'électrons retrodiffusés. Caractérisation de l'auréole de transition de la pâte de ciment autour des granulats. Compréhension des processus de dégardation des bétons, en particulier le gonflement lié à la formation de l'éttringite retardée dans les bétons étuvés.
