Christophe BallifChristophe Ballif is director of the Phototovoltaics and Thin Film Electronics Laboratoryb) (PV-Lab at the institute of microengineering (IMT) in Neuchâtel (part of the EPFL since 2009). The lab focus is on the science and technology of high efficiency heterojunction crystalline cells,so-called passivating contacts for solar cells, multi-junction solar cells include novel generation Perovskite on innovative optical high speed detector and on various macroelectronics application. It also deals with energy management with a focus on integration of solar electricity into the energy system. The PV-Lab has strongly contributed to technology transfer and industrialization of novel devices and full technology with numerous companies. Christophe Ballif graduated as a physicist from the EPFL in 1994, where he also obtained in 1998 his Phd degree working on novel PV materials. He accomplished his postdoctoral research at NREL (Golden, US) on compound semiconductor solar cells (CIGS and CdTe). He worked then at the Fraunhofer ISE (Ge) on crystalline silicon photovoltaics (monocrystalline and multi-crystalline) until 2003 and then at the EMPA in Thun (CH) before becoming full professor at the University of Neuchâtel IMT in 2004, taking over the chair of Prof. A. Shah. Since 2013, C.Ballif is also the director of the new CSEM PV-Center, also located in Neuchâtel. The CSEM PV-Center is focussing more on industrialisation and technology transfer in the field of solar energy, including solar electricity management and storage. At the core of the CSEM PV-center activities lies several "pilot lines" for various kinds of solar cells manufacturing, with a focus coating technologies, wet chemistry processes for crystalline silicon, metalisation techniques for solar cells, and a platform for developing "ideal packaging solutions and polymers" for PV modules. In addition, joined facitilites between CSEM and EPFL of over 800 m2 are available for modules manufacturing, measuring and accelerated aging. CSEM PV-center has also full team dedicated to storage and energy systems and operates a joined center with BFH in Biel for research on electrochemical storage. He (co-) authored over 500 journal and technical papers, as well as several patents. He is an elected member of the SATW, member of the scientific council of the Swiss AEE, and member of the board of the EPFL Energy center. In 2016, he recieved the Becquerel prize for his contributions to the field of high efficiency photovoltaics.
Patrick ThiranPatrick Thiran is a full professor in network and systems theory at the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL. He holds an electrical engineering degree from the Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, an M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, USA, and he received the PhD degree from EPFL, in 1996. He became an adjunct professor in 1998, an assistant professor in 2002, an associate professor in 2006 and a full professor in 2011. He was with Sprint Advanced Technology Labs in Burlingame, California, in 2000-01.
His research interests are in communication and social networks, performance analysis and stochastic models. He is currently active in the analysis and design of wireless and PLC networks (scaling laws, medium access control), in network monitoring (network tomography, multi-layer networks), and data-driven network science. He also contributed to network calculus and to the theory of locally coupled neural networks and self-organizing maps.
He served as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems in 1997-99 and for the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking in 2006-10. He is currently on the editorial board of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication. He is/was on the program committee of different conferences in networking, including ACM Sigcomm, Sigmetrics, IMC, CoNext and IEEE Infocom. He was TPC chair of AMC IMC 2011 and CoNext 2012. He is a Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation and of the IEEE. He received the 1996 EPFL Doctoral Prize and the 2008 Crédit Suisse Teaching Award.
Giovanni De MicheliExpertise
Design technologies for integrated systems on silicon, such as synthesis, hw/sw codesign and low-power design, as well as systems on heterogeneous platforms including electrical and biological components.
Scientific Director of EcoCloud Center at EPFL
Directing activities towards creating sustainable computation including AI.Designing energy-savvy data centers and edge devices.
More information
Please read http://si2.epfl.ch/~demichel/
Giovanni De Micheli is a research scientist in electronics and 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.
Demetri PsaltisResearch group
Teaching & PhD PhD Students Victoria Fay, Colin Nikhil Christian Past EPFL PhD Students Wuzhou Song, Alexandre Goy, Julien Cuennet, Ioannis Papadopoulos, Xin Yang, Grégoire Pierre Jean Laporte, Thomas Jean Victor Marie Lanvin, Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Hashemi, Nicolino Stasio, Morteza Hasani Shoreh, Marilisa Romito, Pooria Hadikhani, Eirini Kakkava, Joowon Lim, Giulia Panusa, Ahmed Bassam Sayed Ayoub Mohamed Ayoub, Amirhossein Saba, Niyazi Ulas Dinç Past EPFL PhD
Giovanni De CesareExpertise
Numerical simulation and physical modeling of hydraulic works and schemes; reservoir sedimentation and turbidity currents; reservoir sediment management; Ultrasonic Doppler flow measurement; river training work and restoration; soil bioengineering and nature based solutions; fluvial eco-morphology; rapid transients in pressurized waterways; technology transfer, commissioned studies and expert reports in applied hydraulics, hydraulic constructions and infrastructures; organization of continuous edu
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
Mihai Adrian IonescuAdrian M. Ionescu is Full Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland. He received the B.S./M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Romania and the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, France, in 1989 and 1997, respectively. He has held staff and/or visiting positions at LETI-CEA, Grenoble, France and INP Grenoble, France and Stanford University, USA, in 1998 and 1999. Dr. Ionescu has published more than 600 articles in international journals and conferences. He received many Best Paper Awards in international conferences, the Annual Award of the Technical Section of the Romanian Academy of Sciences in 1994 and the Blondel Medal in 2009 for contributions to the progress in engineering sciences in the domain of electronics. He is the 2013 recipient of the IBM Faculty Award in Engineering. He served the IEDM and VLSI conference technical committees and was the Technical Program Committee (Co)Chair of ESSDERC in 2006 and 2013. He is a member of the SATW. He is director of the Laboratory of Micro/Nanoelectronic Devices (NANOLAB).
Wulfram GerstnerWulfram Gerstner is Director of the Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience LCN at the EPFL. His research in computational neuroscience concentrates on models of spiking neurons and spike-timing dependent plasticity, on the problem of neuronal coding in single neurons and populations, as well as on the link between biologically plausible learning rules and behavioral manifestations of learning. He teaches courses for Physicists, Computer Scientists, Mathematicians, and Life Scientists at the EPFL. After studies of Physics in Tübingen and at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (Master 1989), Wulfram Gerstner spent a year as a visiting researcher in Berkeley. He received his PhD in theoretical physics from the Technical University Munich in 1993 with a thesis on associative memory and dynamics in networks of spiking neurons. After short postdoctoral stays at Brandeis University and the Technical University of Munich, he joined the EPFL in 1996 as assistant professor. Promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in February 2001, he is since August 2006 a full professor with double appointment in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences and the School of Life Sciences. Wulfram Gerstner has been invited speaker at numerous international conferences and workshops. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Neuroscience, Network: Computation in Neural Systems', Journal of Computational Neuroscience', and `Science'.
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.
Nicolas GrandjeanNicolas Grandjean received a PhD degree in physics from the University ofNice Sophia Antipolis in 1994 and shortly thereafter joined the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) as a permanent staff member. In 2004, he was appointed tenure-track assistant professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) where he created the Laboratory for advanced semiconductors for photonics and electronics. He was promoted to full professor in 2009. He was the director of the Institute of Condensed Matter Physics from 2012 to 2016 and then moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara where he spent 6 months as a visiting professor. Since 2018, he is the head of the School of Physics at the EPFL. He was awarded the Sandoz Family Foundation Grant for Academic Promotion, received the “Nakamura Lecturer” Award in 2010, the "Quantum Devices Award” at the 2017 Compound Semiconductor Week, and “2016 best teacher” award from the EPFL Physics School. His research interests are focused on the physics of nanostructures and III-V nitride semiconductor quantum photonics.
Kamiar AminianKamiar Aminian received the M.S. degree in electrical engineering in 1982, the Ph.D degree in biomedical engineering in 1989 and the Postgraduate degree on technical computing in 1993 from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He was assistant professor (1994-1996) with Sharif University of Technology (Tehran). He joint EPFL in 1996 where he is currently Professor of medical instrumentation and the director of the Laboratory of Movement Analysis and Measurement in the Institute of Bioengineering of EPFL. His research interests include methodologies for human movement monitoring and analysis in real world conditions mainly based on wearable technologies and inertial sensors with emphasis on gait, physical activity and sport. His research aims to perform outcome evaluation in orthopaedics, to improve motor function and intervention programs in aging and patients with movement disorders and pain, and to identify metrics of performance in sport science.
Kamiar Aminian is a member of the International Society of Posture and Gait Research, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the European Society of Movement Analysis in Adults and Children, the Prevention of fall Network Europe, the Intentional Society of Biomechanics and the President of the 3D analysis of the human movement group. He is author or co-author of more than 450 scientific papers published in reviewed journals and presented at international conferences and holds 10 patents related to medical devices.
Full CV
ORCID
Denis GilletDenis Gillet received the Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in 1988, and the Ph.D. degree in Information Systems also from the EPFL in 1995. During 1992 he was appointed as Research Fellow at the Information Systems Laboratory of Stanford University in the United States. He is currently Maître d'enseignement et de recherche at the EPFL School of Engineering, where he leads the React research group. His current research interests include Technologies Enhanced Learning (TEL), Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Human Devices Interaction (HDI) and Optimal Coordination of Complex and Distributed Systems. Denis Gillet is affiliated at EPFL with the Center for Intelligent Systems and the Center for Digital Education.
Christophe SalzmannExpertise
Real-time Internet ServicesReal-time controlQuality of Service and Bandwidth adaptationLabVIEW
Education PhD | Remote experimentation, Network 2005 – 2005 EPFL Directed by Denis Gillet MS. Degree | Computer Science 1999 – 1999 University of Florida Directed by Prof. H. Latchman
Teaching & PhD Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Damien Perritaz, Evgeny Bogdanov, Wissam Halimi Courses Control systems + TP ME
Yves LeterrierYves Leterrier joined EPFL in 1993 and is a faculty member of the Materials Institute. He is a senior scientist and lecturer in the Laboratory for Processing of Advanced Composites (LPAC, previously Laboratory of Composite and Polymer Technology, LTC). Activities
2000-2005: Foundation and Chair of the Korea-Switzerland joint symposia on materials and micro-technologies2004-2008: Board member of FLEXIDIS (the European flexible display consortium) 2004-2009: Group leader on lightweight materials for Solar ImpulseSince 2008: Board member of the French Adhesion SocietySince 2000: President of the EPFL Materials Science Library commissionSince 2012: Editorial board member, Applied Surface ScienceSince 2014: Associate Editor, Frontiers in MaterialsSince 2021: Coordinator of the EPFL Minor on 'Engineering for Sustainability'
Background
1987: MS in materials science and solid state physics (INPL, France) 1991: PhD in materials science (Ecole des Mines, INPL, France) 1992: Research Associate, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA)
Serge VaudenaySerge Vaudenay entered at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in 1989 with a major in mathematics. He earned his agrégation (secondary teaching degree) in mathematics in 1992, then a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Paris 7 - Denis Diderot in 1995. He subsequently became a senior research fellow at the CNRS, prior to being granted his habilitation à diriger des recherches (a postdoctoral degree authorizing the recipient to supervise doctoral students). In 1999, he was appointed as a Professor at the EPFL, where he created the Security and Cryptography Laboratory.
Francesco MondadaDr. Mondada received his M.Sc. in micro-engineering in 1991 and his Doctoral degree in 1997 at EPFL. During his thesis he co-founded the company K-Team, being both CEO and president of the company for about 5 years. He is one of the three main developers of the Khepera robot, considered as a standard in bio-inspired robotics and used by more than 1,000 universities and research centers worldwide. Fully back in research in 2000 and after a short period at CALTECH, he participated to the SWARM-BOTS project as the main developer of the s-bot robot platform, which was ranked on position 39 in the list of The 50 Best Robots Ever (fiction or real) by the Wired Journal in 2006. The SWARM-BOTS project was selected as FET-IST success story by the EU commission. He is author of more than 100 papers in the field of bio-inspired robotics and system level robot design. He is co-editor of several international conference proceedings. In November 2005 he received the EPFL Latsis University prize for his contributions to bio-inspired robotics. In 2011 he received the "Crédit Suisse Award for Best Teaching" from EPFL and in 2012 the "polysphère" award from the students as best teacher in the school of engineering. His interests include the development of innovative mechatronic solutions for mobile and modular robots, the creation of know-how for future embedded applications, and making robot platforms more accessible for education, research, and industrial development.
