Pascale JablonkaPascale Jablonka is a French/Swiss astrophysicist who specializes in the area of galaxy evolution. She earned a doctorate in astrophysics from the University Paris 7- Denis Diderot in France. She then held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Headquarter of the European Southern Observatory (ESO, Germany), before obtaining a position at CNRS (France). She is currently Directrice de Recherche at CNRS and on leave of absence from Paris Observatory in the Laboratoire d'astrophysique of EPFL. Pascale Jablonka conducts both observations and numerical simulations to gain insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies. Her research focuses on three main topics : > Understanding the nature of the first stars in the Universe > Infering the driving parameters of the galaxy star formation histories > Deciphering the impact of the environment on galaxy evolution. Her research exploits ground-based and space telescopes as well as high performance computing facilities.
Sean Lewis HillSean Hill is co-Director of Blue Brain, a Swiss national brain initiative, where he leads the Neuroinformatics division, based at the Campus Biotech in Geneva, Switzerland. He also directs the Laboratory for the Neural Basis of Brain States at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Dr. Hill served as the Executive Director (2011-2013) and Scientific Director (2014-2016) of the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Hill has extensive experience in building and simulating large-scale models of brain circuitry and has also supervised and led research efforts exploring the principles underlying the structure and dynamics of neocortical and thalamocortical microcircuitry. He currently serves in management and advisory roles on several large-scale clinical informatics initiatives around the world. After completing his Ph.D. in computational neuroscience at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland, Dr. Hill held postdoctoral positions at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, then joined the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center where he served as the Project Manager for Computational Neuroscience at Blue Brain until his appointment at the EPFL.
Cathrin BriskenCathrin Brisken, MD, PhD, is Associate Professor of Life Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). Dr. Brisken is internationally recognized for her work on endocrine control of mammary gland development and breast carcinogenesis.
Dr. Brisken received her MD and her PhD degree in Biophysics from the Georg August University of Göttingen, Germany. She completed her postdoctoral work in cancer biology with Dr. R.A. Weinberg at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA, USA. She previously held appointments at the Cancer Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston and the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC).
Research in Dr. Brisken’s laboratory focuses on the cellular and molecular underpinnings of estrogen and progesterone receptor signaling in the breast and the respective roles of these hormones and hormonally active compounds in carcinogenesis. The aim is to understand how recurrent exposures to endogenous and exogenous hormones contribute to breast carcinogenesis in order to better prevent and treat the disease. The laboratory has pioneered in vivo approaches to genetically dissect the role of the reproductive hormones in driving mouse mammary gland development and shown how they control intercellular communication. Dr. Brisken’s group has developed ex vivo and humanized mouse models using patient samples to study hormone action in human tissues in normal settings and during disease progression.
Dr. Brisken is member of the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) Biological Protocol Working Group. She served as Dean of EPFL Doctoral School (more than 2000 PhD students in 18 PhD programs), as member of the Hinterzartener Kreis, the oncology think-tank associated with the German Science Foundation, and numerous Swiss, European, and AACR committees. She co-founded the International Cancer Prevention Institute.
Michael LehningExpertise
Interaction Cryosphere - Atmosphere in particular Snow Processes Natural Hazards Warning and Forecasting Turbulence and Boundary Layer Flows over Alpine Terrain Mountain Hydrology and Permafrost Dynamics Renewable Energy (Wind and Solar) in the Alps and as Contribution to the Swiss Energy Change Agenda
Expertise
Interaction Cryosphere - Atmosphere in particular Snow Processes Natural Hazards Warning and Forecasting Turbulence and Boundary Layer Flows over Alpine Terrain Mountain Hydrology and Perm
Victor PanaretosCurriculum vitae Background & EducationPublications & PreprintsHonours & AwardsEditorial ActivitiesInvited Talks & Seminars
Teaching & PhD PhD Students Ulysse Naepels, Nikitas Georgakis, Ho Yun Past EPFL PhD Students Andrea Kraus, Shahin Tavakoli, Mikael Kuusela, Yoav Zemel, Marie-Hélène Descary, Valentina Masarotto, Tomas Rubin, Tomas Masák, Laya Ghodrati, Kartik Waghmare, Leonardo Santoro Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Matthieu Simeoni, Ophelia Miralles, Sonia Alouini, Timmy Rong Tian Tse, Krali M
Matthew WodrichPublications 96) "Diastereoselective Synthesis of Housanes via the Carbocupration of Cyclopropenes"C. Tanguy, V. Smyrnov, M.D. Wodrich, J. WaserJournal of the American Chemical Society 2026, 148, 15265-15273. [LINK]95) "Accessing CF3-Cyclopropenes - A Platform for the Synthesis of Trifluoromethylated Building Blocks"W. Wu, T. M. Milzarek, M.D. Wodrich, J. WaserOrganic Letters 2026, 28, 3730-3735. [LINK]94) "Regio- and Enantioselective Pictet-Spengler Reaction of a-Diketones Catalyzed by a Single H-Bond Dono
