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.
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
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.
Mario PaoloneMario Paolone received the M.Sc. (with honors) and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy, in 1998 and 2002, respectively. In 2005, he was appointed assistant professor in power systems at the University of Bologna where he was with the Power Systems laboratory until 2011. In 2010, he received the Associate Professor eligibility from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Since 2011 he joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland, where he is now Full Professor, Chair of the Distributed Electrical Systems laboratory and Head of the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research (SCCER) FURIES (Future Swiss Electrical infrastructure). He was co-chairperson of the technical programme committees of the 9th edition of the International Conference of Power Systems Transients (IPST 2009) and of the 2016 Power Systems Computation Conference (PSCC 2016). He was chair of the technical programme committee of the 2018 Power Systems Computation Conference (PSCC 2018). In 2013, he was the recipient of the IEEE EMC Society Technical Achievement Award. He was co-author of several papers that received the following awards: best IEEE Transactions on EMC paper award for the year 2017, in 2014 best paper award at the 13th International Conference on Probabilistic Methods Applied to Power Systems, Durham, UK, in 2013 Basil Papadias best paper award at the 2013 IEEE PowerTech, Grenoble, France, in 2008 best paper award at the International Universities Power Engineering Conference (UPEC). He was the founder Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier journal Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks and was Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics. His research interests are in power systems with particular reference to real-time monitoring and operation, power system protections, power systems dynamics and power system transients. Mario Paolone is author or coauthor of over 300 scientific papers published in reviewed journals and international conferences.
Klaus Benedikt SchönenbergerVision: Scientific research and technology development can be mobilized to help the poorest and most vulnerable in this world. Klaus Schönenberger obtained an MSc in Microengineering (1993), followed by a PhD (1996) from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). After a post-doc at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, he spent over 10 years in the medical devices industry in leading positions such as Vice-President of Worldwide R&D in a 100mcompanyandGlobalVice−ResidentofResearchandTechnologyina1bn company. In 2009, as he was working for a medical devices company, he received a shock: he realized that there is a huge imbalance in access to medical technology in industrialized versus low and middle-income countries. After a closer look, he discovered that he imbalance’s main cause is a mismatch between existing technologies and business models, with those needed in low and middle-income countries. He decided to leave industry and, in 2009, he co-founded the EssentialMed Foundation, an innovative non-profit venture. In 2011, realizing that both technology and business models needed a profound rethinking, he joined EPFL where he launched EssentialTech, an initiative inspired by the philosophy of EssentialMed but expanded to a much wider portfolio of "essential" technologies. The university-wide program aims to develop innovative technologies and business models, for the benefit of sustainable development in low and middle-income countries. In this role, he has already launched and overseen a dozen large projects. Major Humanitarian actors such as the ICRC, MSF and Terre des Hommes took notice of the innovative approach proposed, and decided to collaborate in 2015-2016. This has resulted notably in the joint creation between EPFL and ICRC, of the Humanitarian Tech Hub at EPFL. In May 2017, Klaus directed and launched a MOOC(Massive Open Online Course) entitled “Technology Innovation for Sustainable Development” which aims to spread the unique methodology and approach worldwide. As of today, more than 6000 people have enrolled. In 2018 a first spin-off company was created. Award winning Pristem SA will deploy an innovative new digital xray imaging system, specifically designed for low-income contexts. In December 2018, the creation of the EssentialTech centre was announced by EPFL's presidency, and Klaus is now the Centre's director. Another spin-off of the EssentialTech Centre is the company HMCare, launched in 2020, which is deploying a transparent surgical mask. Hans Peter HerzigDr. Hans Peter Herzig is Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Past President of the European Optical Society (EOS). His current research interests include refractive and diffractive micro-optics, nano-scale optics and optical MEMS.
Hans Peter Herzig received his diploma in physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1978. From 1978 to 1982 he was a scientist with the Optics Development Department of Kern in Aarau, Switzerland, working in lens design and optical testing. In 1983, he became a graduate research assistant with the Applied Optics Group at the Institute of Microtechnology of the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, working in the field of holographic optical elements. In 1987, he received his PhD degree in optics. From 1989 to 2001 he was head of the micro-optics research group in Neuchâtel. From 2002 to 2008 he was a full professor and head of the Applied Optics Laboratory at the University of Neuchâtel. Professor Herzig joined the faculty at EPFL in January 2009.
He is member of OSA, IEEE Photonics Society and Fellow of EOS. 2009-2010 he was President of the European Optical Society (EOS), 2001-2009 Vice-President of the Swiss Society of Optics and Microscopy and 2012-2014 Vice-President of ICO. Dr. Herzig is in the editorial board of different scientific journals (JM3, Optical Review, JEOS). He served as Conference Chairman for international conferences of EOS, IEE, IEEE/LEOS, OSA and SPIE; and as Guest Editor of three special issues of IEEE, OSA journals. He is editor of a well-known book on micro-optics (published in English and Chinese), author of 14 book chapters, over 150 peer reviewed articles and 300 conference proceedings.
Christoph KochExpertise
knows everything ;-)
Publications
My publications in Google ScholarMy publications in DBLPMy papers on EPFL's publications server (InfoScience)Prospective PhD students and postdocs please read this before contacting me.
Christoph Koch is a professor of Computer Science at EPFL, specializing in data management. Until 2010, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University. Previously to this, from 2005 to 2007, he was an Associate Professor of Computer Scienc
Viktor KuncakViktor Kunčak joined EPFL in 2007, after receiving a PhD degree from MIT. Since then has been leading the Laboratory for Automated Reasoning and Analysis and supervised at least 12 completed PhD theses. His works on languages, algorithms and systems for verification and automated reasoning. He served as an initiator and one of the coordinators of a European network (COST action) in the area of automated reasoning, verification, and synthesis. In 2012 he received a 5-year single-investigator European Research Council (ERC) grant of 1.5M EUR. His invited talks include those at Lambda Days, Scala Days, NFM, LOPSTR, SYNT, ICALP, CSL, RV, VMCAI, and SMT. A paper on test generation he co-authored received an ACM SIGSOFT distinguished paper award at ICSE. A PLDI paper he co-authored was published in the Communications of the ACM as a Research Highlight article. His Google Scholar profile reports an over-approximate H-index of 38. He was an associate editor of ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS) and served as a co-chair of conferences on Computer-Aided Verification (CAV), Formal Methods in Computer Aided Design (FMCAD), Workshop on Synthesis (SYNT), and Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation (VMCAI). At EPFL he teaches courses on functional and parallel programming, compilers, and verification. He has co-taught the MOOC "Parallel Programming" that was visited by over 100'000 learners and completed by thousands of students from all over the world.
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
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.
Fabrizio CarboneBirth 20/04/1976
Master degree: University of Pavia "optoelectronic engineering". September 2001.
Reasearch scientist at Pirelli Labs, Milan Italy between September 2000 and August 2002.
PhD in condensed matter physics from the University of Geneva, prof. van der Marel gorup. January 2007
Post doc in physical chemistry at Caltech in prof. Zewail`s group. March 2007-April 2009
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).
Nikolaos StergiopoulosEducation
MTE, Managing the Technology Enterprise Program (2000), IMD, Lausanne
Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering & Engineering Mechanics (1990) Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.
MS in Biomedical Engineering (1987) Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.
Diploma in Mechanical Engineering (1985) National Technical University of Athens.
Professional Activities
2002 - present: Professor and director of LHTC
2010 - present: Founder and director of Rheon Medical SA, Préverenges, Switzerland
2008 - present: Founder and director of Antlia S.A., PSE-C, EPFL campus, Switzerland
1998 - 2007: Founder and Scientific Director of EndoArt S.A., Lausanne, Switzerland
1996 - 2002: Assistant professor at the Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland.
1991 - 1996: Research Associate at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Lausanne
1990 - 1991: Lecturer, Iowa State University
Mohammad Amin ShokrollahiAmin Shokrollahi has worked on a variety of topics, including coding theory, computational number theory and algebra, and computational/algebraic complexity theory. He is best known for his work on iterative decoding algorithms of graph based codes, an area in which he holds a number of granted and pending patents. He is the co-inventor of Tornado codes, and the inventor of Raptor codes. His codes have been standardized and successfully deployed in practical areas dealing with data transmission over lossy networks.
Prior to joining EPFL, Amin Shokrollahi has held positions as the chief scientist of Digital Fountain, member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories, senior researcher at the International Computer Science Insitute in Berkeley, and assistant professor at the department of computer science of the university of Bonn. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, and he was awarded the Best Paper Award of the IEEE IT Society in 2002 for his work on iterative decoding of LDPC code, the IEEE Eric Sumner Award in 2007 for the development of Fountain Codes, and the joint Communication Society/Information Theory Society best paper award of 2007 for his paper on Raptor Codes.
