Vassily HatzimanikatisDr. Vassily Hatzimanikatis is currently Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Lausanne, Switzerland. Vassily received a PhD and an MS in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and his Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the University of Patras, in Greece. After the completion of his doctoral studies, he held a research group leader position at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ), Switzerland. Prior to joining EPFL, Vassily worked for three years in DuPont, Cargill, and Cargill Dow, and he has been assistant professor at Northwestern University, at Illinois, USA.
Vassilys research interests are in the areas of computational systems biology, biotechnology, and complexity. He is associate editor of the journals Biotechnology & Bioengineering, Metabolic Engineering and Integrative Biology, and he serves on the editorial advisory board of the journals Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering, Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, and Industrial Biotechnology. He has written over 70 technical publications and he is co-inventor in three patents and patent applications.
Vassily is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2010), he was a DuPont Young Professor (2001-2004), and he has also received the Jay Bailey Young Investigator Award in Metabolic Engineering (2000), and the ACS Elmar Gaden Award (2011).
Xile HuXile Hu was born in 1978 in Putian, southeastern China. He entered the Peking University in Beijing in 1996. Besides learning too little chemistry, his biggest regret in the college was not able to correct his southern accent in Mandarin. After graduated from PKU, he went to the United States and began his doctoral studies at the University of California, San Diego. In December 2004, he finished with a Ph.D. in chemistry and some fond memories of the beautiful city of San Diego. He then moved to the Los Angeles area and become a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology. There he enjoyed numerous stimulating scientific (and other) discussions with friends and colleagues. He also made plenty of friends outside the campus and was a frequent in many local Chinese restaurants. In 2007, after two pleasant visits to Switzerland, he decided to move across the continent one more time and join the faculty of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He now directs the Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Catalysis and is interested in developing chemistry for synthesis, energy and sustainability.
Gabor LaurenczyTeaching & PhD Past EPFL PhD Students Christian Ohlin, Céline Fellay, Weijia Gan, Katerina Stefania Sordakis, Mickael Montandon-Clerc, Cornel Fink, Lu Chen Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Séverine Joëlle Moret, Felix Daniel Bobbink
Paul Joseph DysonPaul Dyson joined the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at the EPFL in 2002 where he heads the Laboratory of Organometallic and Medicinal Chemistry and between 2008 and 2016 chaired the Institute. He has won several prizes including the Werner Prize of the Swiss Chemical Society in 2004, the Award for Outstanding Achievements in Bioorganometallic Chemistry in 2010, the Centennial Luigi Sacconi Medal of the Italian Chemical Society in 2011, the Bioinorganic Chemistry Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2015, the European Sustainable Chemistry Award of the European Chemical Society in 2018 and the Green Chemistry Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2020. He is also a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher and has an H-index >110 (web of science and google scholar). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2010, a Fellow of the European Academy of Science in 2019 and a life-long fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2020. Over the years he has held visiting professorships at the University of Bourgogne, University of Pierre et Marie Curie, University of Vienna, University of Rome Tor Vergara, Chimie Paristech and Shangai Jiao Tong University.Since 2016 he has been Member of the Council of the Division of Mathematics, Natural and Engineering Sciences at the Swiss National Science Foundation.Between 2016-2021 he has been Member of the Council of the Division of Mathematics, Natural and Engineering Sciences at the Swiss National Science Foundation. In 2021 he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Basic Sciences.
Qiucheng XuExpertise
- Operando Water and Ion Transport: I pioneered operando high-energy X-ray scattering and fluorescence (WAXS/SAXS/XRF) to directly visualize water and ion transport in membrane–electrode assemblies. These studies revealed how water movement, flooding, and salt formation govern degradation in CO/CO2 electrolysis, establishing the dynamic transport mechanisms in confined electrochemical environments. (Nat. Nanotechnol. 2025; Joule 2024; Nat. Catal. 2023)2. Design of Membrane-Electrode Interface: I
Marinella MazzantiExpertise
Inorganic Chemistry, Coordination ChemistryF-elements Chemistry
Teaching & PhD Past EPFL PhD Students Julie Renée Michelle Andrez, Marta Falcone, Radmila Faizova, Davide Toniolo, Luciano Barluzzi, Aurélien René Willauer, Nadir Jori, Dieuwertje Katelijn Modder, Hsueh Fang-Che, Keerthi Shivaraam Rangaraj Ananthakumar, Mikhail Batov Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Andreichenko Andrei Courses Chemistry of f elements CH-427 The course will provide a synopsis of the chemistry of f e
Hubert GiraultEducation: 1979 - Engineering diploma from Grenoble Institute of Technology. FRANCE. 1982 - PhD- Department of Chemistry, University of Southampton. Thesis entitled : Interfacial studies using drop image processing techniques. Positions : 1982 - 1984 SERC Research Fellow. University of Southampton. 1984 - 1985 CNRS Research Fellow. University of Southampton. 1985 - 1992 Lecturer in Physical Chemistry, University of Edinburgh. 1992 - Professor of Physical Chemistry, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. 2011 - 2014 Dean of Bachelor and Master studies Hubert Girault is the author of 2 textbooks, the co-author of about 600 scientific publications with more than 20'000 citations and the co-inventor of more than 15 patents. During his academic career, he has supervised 70 PhD students. 30 alumni of his laboratory are now Professors. Honours: Faraday medal 2006, Royal Society of Chemistry, Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry 2007, Reilley Award 2015. Fellow of the Electrochemical Society (USA), Shikata International medal, Polarography Society of Japan. Associate editor of Chemical Science
Jieping ZhuTeaching & PhD PhD Students Morgane Elodie Marie Delattre, Paul Jean Gri, Clément Paul Adrien Rols, Yun Hao Shawn Teh Past EPFL PhD Students Jean-Baptiste Gualtierotti, Ala Bunescu, Thomas Buyck, Olivier Wagnières, Minh Tu Ha, Dylan Jean Robert Dagoneau, Antonin François Roland Clemenceau, Cyril Piemontesi, Nicolas David Gaeng, Mathias Mamboury, Raphaël Beltran, Balázs Budai, Teerawat Songsichan, Alexandre Julien Florent Leclair, Bastien Delayre, Rémi Julien Sylvain Andres, Dina Boyarskaya, Rémi Lavernhe,
Davide FerriTeaching & PhD PhD Students Gabriela-Teodora Dutca, Daniel Camilo Cano Blanco, Marie-Gabrielle Ameres, Marianela Lopez Romero, Min Li Tan Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Adrian Marberger, Patrick Simon Steiger, Thibault Xavier Florian Fovanna, Rob Jeremiah G. Nuguid, Maneka Claire Roger, Filippo Buttignol, Federico Cambiè
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
Alexandros PapagiannisProf. Alex. Papayannis (Dipl. Ing., DEA, Ph.D.) is the Director of the Laboratory of Optoelectronics, Lasers and Applications (
http://www.physics.ntua.gr/~lola/pages/en.html
) and Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Laser Technology and Laser Remote Sensing at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He received his DEA and Ph.D. Diplomas from the Université Paris 7, working at the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL) du CNRS/Université Paris 6. He is affiliated to the Laboratory of Atmospheric Processes and their Impacts (LAPI) at EPFL.
He is a LiDAR expert (more than 35 years) in vertical profiling of atmospheric parameters, aerosols, bio-aerosols, clouds and gases (O3, H2O, glyoxal) in the troposphere, in combination with sun photometry, satellite data,
in situ
aerosol measurements and meteorological modelling. Being member of the 1st Tropospheric Ozone Network (TOR/TESLAS/EUREKA Projects) in Europe, he created, on 1996, the 1st European lidar Network (France, Switzerland, UK, Germany, Italy, Greece, Portugal). Soon after, he initiated the creation of several lidar groups in Greece, Brazil, Romania, China, etc., as well as of the RAYMETRICS lidar company (
www.raymetrics.com
), which is the first lidar company in the world with customers in throughout Europe, Americas, Asia and Africa. He is a founding member of the European lidar Network (EARLINET) (
www.earlinet.org
), which has been in operation since 2000. The NTUA lidar station serves as a calibration station of the CNES/NASA space lidar mission CALIPSO (
https://www-calipso.larc.nasa.gov/
) and the European Space Agency (ESA) space lidar mission AEOLUS (
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/Aeolus/Introducing_Aeolus
).
His research focuses on the intercontinental transport of ozone, desert dust and biomass burning and continental aerosols and on their impact on clouds, climate, air quality and health. As his 1st Marie Curie ITN Grant (http://itars.uni-koeln.de/static/) combined the synergy of lidars, radars and micro-wave profiling systems to study of the aerosol-clouds interactions, his research is also focusing on the cloud formation processes based on such synergies. In recent years, his emphasis is also put on the typing and profiling of bio-aerosols using novel prototype lidar systems he designed and developed at NTUA.
He is member (2008-2015) and President (2015-2023) of the International Coordination Group for Laser Atmospheric Studies (ICLAS) (
http://iclas-ilrc.org/).
He has served as Co-chair and Member of the Scientific Committee of more than 26 International Conferences, related to lidar atmospheric/meteorological applications. He has participated in 67 research projects (EU, ESA, NASA, CNRS, INOE-Romania, IPEN-Brazil, and Greek national funds) and has published 132 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 6 Book chapters and 250 papers in peer-reviewed International Conferences Proceedings. He has received more than 8.100 citations (h-index 46) in Google Scholar. He has supervised more 15 Ph.D. students at NTUA and 60 M.Sc. Diploma Theses. Olivier MartinOlivier J.F. Martin received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in physics in 1989 and 1994, respectively, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. In 1989, he joined IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, where he investigated thermal and optical properties of semiconductor laser diodes. Between 1994 and 1997 he was a research staff member at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETHZ). In 1997 he received a Lecturer fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). During the period 1996-1999, he spent a year and a half in the U.S.A., as invited scientist at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD). In 2001 he received a Professorship grant from the SNSF and became Professor of Nano-Optics at the ETHZ. In 2003, he was appointed Professor of Nanophotonics and Optical Signal Processing at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL), where he is currently head of the Nanophotonics and Metrology Laboratory and Director of the Microengineering Section.
Jan Van HerleBorn in Antwerp, Belgium. In Switzerland since 1983. Became Swiss citizen in 2004 out of conviction of principles of democracy and bottom-up participation. No double nationality. Village Council Member for 2 five-year mandates in 2006-2016.
1987 : Chemist from Basel University (CH).
1988 : Post-graduate IT diploma from Basel Engineering School.
1989 : Industry internship ABB Baden (CH).
1990-1993 : PhD Thesis EPFL, on Solid Oxide Fuel Cell cathode reaction mechanisms.
1994-1995 : Japanese Postdoctoral Fellowship in Tsukuba, Japan, on ceramic powders.
1995-2000 : Researcher at EPFL, Dpt. Chemistry : project responsible in PPM2 (materials), FP4-BriteEuram, NEDO (Japan), Swiss Gas Union (CH, oxygen membranes).
1998-2000 : Masters in Energy Technology, EPFL.
2000 : Cofounder of HTceramix SA (EPFL spin-off), now based in Yverdon (14 employees). Taken over by SOLIDpower in 2007, now 250 employees with 70 MCHF raised.
2000 : 1st Assistant and lecturer at LENI (STI-IGM) : fuel cell group responsible, projects on biogas (Federal Energy Office), woodgas (CCEM), fuel cell stacking (CTI, FP6, FNS), ceramic separation membranes (COST, FNS), microtubes (STI Seed), stability/lifetime/reliability in fuel cells (Electricité de France, swisselectric research). Currently 4 Ph D theses ongoing, 14 theses concluded, of which 5 colateral with SB and IMX. M.E.R. since Nov 2008.
Total funding raised so far >18 MCHF (50% as main applicant; 30% outside CH; 20% industry).
Scientific output : >135 peer-reviewed publications, >120 conference papers, 40 invited presentations (8 keynotes), >70 granted proposals.
Fluent in 5 languages (Dutch, French, German ( Swiss-german), English, Spanish).
