François MaréchalPh D. in engineering Chemical process engineer
Researcher and lecturer in the field of computer aided process and energy systems engineering.
Lecturer in the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and environmental sciences engineering in EPFL.
I'm responsible for the Minor in Energy of EPFL and I'm involved in 3 projects of the Competence Center in Energy and Mobility (2nd generation biofuel, Wood SOFC, and gas turbine development with CO2 mitigation) in which i'm contributing to the energy conversion system design and optimisation.
Short summary of my scientific carrer
After a graduation in chemical engineering from the University of Liège, I have obtained a Ph. D. from the University of Liège in the LASSC laboratory of Prof. Kalitventzeff (former president of the European working party on computer aided process engineering). This laboratory was one of the pioneering laboratory in the field of Computer Aided Process Engineering.
In the group of Professor Kalitventzeff, I have worked on the development and the applications of data reconciliation, process modelling and optimisation techniques in the chemical process industry, my experience ranges from nuclear power stations to chemical plants. In the LASSC, I have been responsible from the developments in the field of rational use of energy in the industry. My first research topic has been the methodological development of process integration techniques, combining the use of pinch based methods and of mathematical programming: e.g. for the design of multiperiod heat exchanger networks or Mixed integer non linear programming techniques for the optimal management of utility systems. Fronted with applications in the industry, my work then mainly concentrated on the optimal integration of utility systems considering not only the energy requirements but the cost of the energy requirements and the energy conversion systems. I developed methods for analysing and integrating the utility system, the steam networks, combustion (including waste fuel), gas turbines or other advanced energy conversion systems (cogeneration, refrigeration and heat). The techniques applied uses operation research tools like mixed integer linear programming and exergy analysis. In order to evaluate the results of the utility integration, a new graphical method for representing the integration of the utility systems has been developed. By the use of MILP techniques, the method developed for the utility integration has been extended to handled site scale problems, to incorporate environmental constraints and reduce the water usage. This method (the Effect Modelling and Optimisation method) has been successfully applied to the chemical plants industry, the pulp and paper industry and the power plant. Instead of focusing on academic problems, I mainly developed my research based on industrial applications that lead to valuable and applicable patented results. Recently the methods developed have been extended to realise the thermoeconomic optimisation of integrated systems like fuel cells. My present R&D work concerns the application of multi-objective optimisation strategies in the design of processes and integrated energy conversion systems.
Since 2001, Im working in the Industrial Energy Systems Laboratory (LENI) of Ecole Polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) where Im leading the R&D activities in the field of Computer Aided Analysis and Design of Industrial Energy Systems with a major focus on sustainable energy conversion system development using thermo-economic optimisation methodologies. A part from the application and the development of process integration techniques, that remains my major field of expertise, the applications concern :
Rational use of water and energy in Industrial processes and industrial production sites : projects with NESTLE, EDF, VEOLIA and Borregaard (pulp and paper).Energy conversion and process design : biofuels from waste biomass (with GASNAT, EGO and PSI), water dessalination and waste water treatment plant (VEOLIA), power plant design (ALSTOM), Energy conversion from geothermal sources (BFE). Integrated energy systems in urban areas : together with SCANE and SIG (GE) and IEA annexe 42 for micro-cogeneration systems.
I as well contributed to the definition of the 2000 Watt society and to studies concerning the emergence of green technologies on the market in the frame of the Alliance for Global Sustainability.
Federica Sandronefrom 2008: Engineer at SBB-Infrastructure, responsible for Tunnels Management and Maintenance from 2007: Assistant for the courses "Tunnel Engineering" and "Underground Construction Technology" 2004-2008: PhD Student (Structure Doctoral Program) at LMR-EPFL PhD degree: February 2008 at EPFL with a thesis entitled "Analysis of pathologies and long term behaviour of the Swiss National Road tunnels" 2003: Assistant at the Georesources and Landscape Department of Politecnico di Torino (TUSC). Main research domains: in situ surveys, monitoring measurements analysis and numerical modelling on tunnels with ageing problems and/or collapses, settling and subsiding in chalk pit, instability of slope dumps, interaction between cutting-tools of a TBM and the rock-mass 2003: Graduate at the Politecnico di Torino in Geotechnical Engineering with a Master Thesis about Stability controls and refurbishment operations on a damaged railway tunnel
Martine LapriseTeaching & PhD Courses Vers des villes bioclimatiques ? AR-688
Roberto CastelloRoberto Castello is a senior scientist and group leader at the EPFL Laboratory of Solar Energy and Building Physics. Physicist by training, he has extensive experience in collecting, classifying and interpreting large datasets using advanced data mining techniques and statistical methods. He received his MSc (2007) in Particle Physics and PhD (2010) in Physics and Astrophysics from the University of Torino. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Belgian National Research Fund (2011-2014) and at the CERN Experimental Physics Department (2015-2017) as a research fellow and data scientist. He is primary author of more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and he presented at major international conferences in the high energy physics domain.
In 2018 he joined the Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO-PB) to work on data mining and Machine Learning techniques for the built environment and renewable energy. His main research interests are: spatio-temporal modeling of renewable energy potential, energy consumption forecasting techniques, anomaly detection, and computer vision techniques for automated classification in the built environment.
He leads the group of Urban Data Mining, Intelligence and Simulation at LESO-PB and he is a member of the NRP75 Big Data project (HyEnergy) of the Swiss National Science Foundation. He is a member of the Swiss Competence Centre for Energy Research (SCCER) and deputy leader of the working group on Leveraging Ubiquitous Energy Data. He has served as a scientific committee member, workshop organizer and speaker at international conferences (ICAE 2020, Applied Machine Learning Days 2019 and 2020, CISBAT 2019 and 2021 and SDS2020).
Since 2017 he is member of the Geneva 2030 Ecosystem network, promoting the United Nations agenda towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Jean-Louis ScartezziniDirector of EPFL Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (1994-present); Founder & Director of ENAC Institute of Infrastructures, Resources and Environment (2002-2009); Founder & Director of EPFL Doctoral Program in Environment (2002-2009); Co-Director of EPFL Institute of Building Technology (1994-1997); Associate Professor of Building Physics at EPFL (1994-1997); Associate Professor of Building Physics at University of Geneva (1990-1997); Group Leader & Research Fellow at the EPFL Solar Energy Research Group (1981-1989); Research Fellow at the Applied Geophysics Institute of University of Lausanne (1980-1981).
Devis TuiaI come from Ticino and studied in Lausanne, between UNIL and EPFL. After my PhD at UNIL in remote sensing, I was postdoc in Valencia (Spain), Boulder (CO) and EPFL, working on model adaptation and prior knowledge integration in machine learning. In 2014 I became Research Assistant Professor at University of Zurich, where I started the 'multimodal remote sensing' group. In 2017, I joined Wageningen University (NL), where I was professor of the GeoInformation Science and Remote Sensing Laboratory. Since 2020, I joined EPFL Valais, to start the ECEO lab, working at the interface between Earth observation, machine learning and environmental sciences.
Simon Elias BibriExpertise
• Sustainable cities• Smarter eco-cities• Sustainable smart cities• Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) • Generative Artificial Intelligence of Things (GAIoT)• Foundation Models (FMs) • Quantum Generative Artificial Intelligence (QGAI)• Urban Digital Twins (UDTs)• Urban Brain (UB) • Smart Circular Metabolism• Urban planning and design• Environmental sustainability and climate resilience• Sustainable smart energy• Sustainable smart transportation• Sustainable smart waste and water management•
Stéphane JoostExpertise
Geographic Information Science and spatial statisticsMolecular ecology, Landscape genomics, Seascape genomicsSpatial epidemiology, Health geographics
Publications Publications- List of publications
Teaching & PhD PhD Students Marco André Vieira Ruas, Manon Laetitia Pribille, Martine Valérie Besse Past EPFL PhD Students Estelle Rochat, Solange Catherine Gaillard, Oliver Michele Selmoni, Anaïs Ladoy, Annie Sandrine Guillaume Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Sylvie Stucki, Kevin Leempoel, Martí
Isabella Di LenardoPh.D. in Theories and Art History. Isabella di Lenardo is senior scientist in Digital Humanities and Urban History. Her research activity is focused on digital tools and methods applied to Urban History. She is an expert in ancient cartography, city representations, cadastral sources interpreted through digital modeling, extraction and analysis systems.She's also interested in network analysis questioning the production and circulation of artistic and architectural knowledge in Europe XVIth – XVIIIth centuries in particular on North-South relationships and influences. The development of collaboration projects with European institutions and the activity carried out on various initiatives supported by the European Commission have allowed her to acquire specialism in the field of science applied to heritage, developing in particular specific skills for the enhancement of Cultural Heritage through digital tools. She leads projects in collaboration with Bibliothèque national de France (Paris), Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (Paris), Ecole nationale des chartes (Paris), Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Centre Allemand d’Histoire de l’Art (Paris), Musée du Louvre, Archives Nationales de Paris, Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux. She supervised all the urban modeling simulations for the Venice Time Machine project and acted as content curator for all the exhibitions (Venice Biennale, Grand Palais-Paris, Datasquare - ArtLab-Lausanne, Museo Correr-Venice). She was Head of “Replica” project : digitizing 1 million photos of artworks in the Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice) and visual patterns extraction through a search engine for visual similarities. She has a Ph.D in Art History and also studied Archaeology and Urban Studies. She has published essays and articles about Venetian Art and Urban History and participated in many Art exhibitions in European museums. She coordinated summer schools and workshops about Digital Tools for Art History and Urban History. She attended conferences on digital methods for History in universities and patrimonial institutions.
Rémi Guillaume PetitpierreTeaching & PhDDigital urban history: Lausanne Time Machine HUM-450, HUM-454 - Teaching assistant. Website
Roger HerschRoger D. Hersch is professor of Computer Science and head of the Peripheral Systems Laboratory at EPFL. He received his engineering degree from ETHZ in 1975, worked in industry from 1975 to 1980, and obtained his PhD degree from EPFL in 1985. He directed the widely known
Visible Human Web Server project
, which offers a number of services for the visualization of human anatomy.
His current research focuses on color reproduction, spectral color prediction models, moiré imaging, and visual document security. Recent achievements include the PhotoProtect technology, which incorporates text as chromatic differences in order to protect identity photographs (Swiss driving license), microstructure imaging, which is used by railways companies (SNCF, RENFE) and festival organizers (Paleo) to print tickets at home and the band moire imaging technology for the protection of security documents.
Jan SkaloudExpertise
Satellite positioning, inertial and integrated navigation Sensor orientation and calibration, attitude determination Mobile mapping, airborne laser scanning Adjustment methods, Kalman Filtering
Mission
Teaching in 3 EPFL sections and 2 faculties, director of ESO lab.
Books / Monographs J. Skaloud and M. Cramer, «Data Capture,» in GIS Handbook, W. Kresse and D. Danko, Eds. Springer, 2011. D. Lichti and J. Skaloud, «Registration and Calibration,» in Airborne and terrestrial laser scanning, H.-G. Ma
Sylvain CoutuExpertise
• Nature Finance• Agriculture financial risk management• Environmental engineering• Insurance industry
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND • PhD in Environmental Engineering (EPFL)• Master in Environmental Fluid Mechanics (exchange, MIT - Universita di Genova)• Diplôme d'ingénieur des grandes écoles (ENGEES)AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS • Senior Expert Advisor at Nature Finance [since 2024• Member of FAO Technical Finance Committee (FTAC) on Food Security [since 2024]• Advisory Board of Quideos (Agriculture/Fintech s
