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).
Aravindhan VenkateswaranTeaching & PhD Courses Master project in Physics PHYS-599(b) The student realises a research project in a physics laboratory or in a company.
Luis Miguel Garcia MartinTeaching & PhD Courses Master project in Physics PHYS-599(b) The student realises a research project in a physics laboratory or in a company. Particle physics: the flavour frontiers PHYS-471 This course will present experimental aspects of flavour physics primarily in the quark sector but also in the lepton sector and their role in the development of the Standard Model of particle physics.
Katharina MüllerEducation Master's degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology | 2023 – 2023 University Heidelberg Bachelor's degree | 2020 – 2020 University Heidelberg
Athanasios NenesTeaching & PhD PhD Students Berkay Dönmez, Ernest Abboud Past EPFL PhD Students Paraskevi Georgakaki, Lucile Ricard Courses Atmospheric processes: from cloud to global scales ENV-407 The main objective is to present important atmospheric processes from the local to global scales. The course will start with cloud processes, continue to synoptic phenomena like extratropical cyclones and fronts, to finally cover numerical modeling at the regional and global scales. Introduction to environme
Daniel Alexander Florez OrregoExpertise
• Exergy and Energy Integration of Chemical and Industrial Processes• Cogeneration and Polygeneration, Refrigeration and Heat Pumping Systems• Technical, Economic and Environmental Analyses• Refineries, Biorefineries, Fertilizers Complexes, Hydrogen and Synthetic Fuels (SNG, DME, MeOH, FT, H2, Power-to-X)• Second law of Thermodynamics and Irreversible Thermodynamics• Combustion, Heat Transfer, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Reaction design• Modeling and Optimization of Energy Conversion Systems• Ma
Alexandre Brea RodriguezTeaching & PhD Courses Selected topics in nuclear and particle physics PHYS-400 This course presents the physical principles and the recent research developments on three topics of particle and nuclear physics: the physics of neutrinos, dark matter, and plasmas of quarks and gluons. An emphasis is given on experimental aspects in these three research fields.
Charlotte GrossiordTeaching & PhD PhD Students Maxwell Zachary Wallace Bergström, Julie Anne Botzas-Coluni, Cross Jacob Heintzelman, Léo César Bernard Jacquat, Céline Joanna Sijlmans Past EPFL PhD Students Eugénie Mas, Laura Mekarni, Janisse Deluigi, Thibaut Juillard Courses Applied ecology ENV-422 The course will provide the ecological systems knowledge needed to question applied sustainability solutions. We willcritically assess the complexity of current environmental issues, illustrating basic ecological
Julia SchmaleExpertise
atmospheric science, aerosol-cloud interactions, climate change in polar regions
Mission
Extreme environments are particularly sensitive to climate change and are transforming at accelerated rates. This can have important global repercussions. EERL aims to create integrated process understanding by investigating interactions between the atmosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, ocean, land and anthroposphere. The goal is to characterize climate-change relevant and vertically-resolved processes that are d
Claudia Rebeca Binder SignerClaudia R. Binder, a Swiss, Canadian and Colombian citizen, was born in Montreal and spent most of her childhood in Switzerland and Colombia. She studied at ETH Zurich from 1985 to 1996, earning a degree in biochemistry and then a PhD in environmental sciences. After conducting her post-doctoral research at the University of Maryland in the US from 1996 to 1998, she returned to Switzerland and took a position as a senior research scientist at ETH Zurich, studying the interaction between human and environmental systems at the Institute for Natural and Social Science Interface. In 2006, Binder joined the University of Zurich as an assistant professor in the Department of Geography, and in 2009 moved to the University of Graz in Austria where she served as a full professor of systems science. In 2011, she took a position at the University of Munich’s Department of Geography as a full professor of human-environment relations.
Binder joined EPFL in March 2016 and set up the Laboratory for Human-Environment Relations in Urban Systems (HERUS) at ENAC; she also holds the La Mobilière Chair on Urban Ecology and Sustainable Living.
Her research involves analyzing, modelling and assessing the transition of urban systems towards sustainability. She looks in particular at how we can better understand the dynamics of urban metabolism, what characterizes a sustainable city, and what drives and hinders transformation processes. She does so by combining knowledge from social, natural and data science. Her research focuses on food, energy, and sustainable living and transport in urban systems.
In Switzerland, Binder was appointed to the Research Council, Programs Division of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in 2016 and serves on the Steering Committee of the SNSF’s National Research Program 71, “Managing Energy Consumption” and the Swiss Competence Centers for Energy Research (SCCER). She is also a member of the Steering Board on Sustainability Research for the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences. In 2019, she was elected as a member of the University Council of the University of Munich (LMU).
At EPFL, Binder is the academic director of Design Together, a cross-disciplinary teaching initiative. She was appointed to the management team of the Energy Center in 2018 and as head of the working group on EPFL’s energy and sustainability strategy in 2019.
Meret AeppliExpertise
soil chemistry, redox reactions, biogeochemistry
Meret Aeppli joined EPFL as a tenure track assistant professor and head of the soil biogeochemistry laboratory (SOIL) in September 2022. Her group aims to elucidate the fundamental principles and mechanisms of electron transfer reactions and their role in the biogeochemical cycling of carbon and metals in soil. Meret was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in the department of Earth System Science from 2019 to 2022 where she studied biogeoc
Mirko MusaExpertise
Hydraulic engineering, experimental research, sediment transport, morphodynamics, river mechanics, hydropower, hydrokinetic energy, renewable energy
Mirko Musa is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Hydraulic Engineering within the Institute of Civil Engineering at EPFL. He directs the STREEM Lab (Sustainable River Engineering, Energy, and Morphodynamics). STREEM Lab integrates laboratory experiments, data analysis, and analytical modeling to advance water power technologies, including hydropowe
Sara BonettiExpertise
Ecohydrological and geomorphological modeling
Education PhD | Civil and Environmental Engineering 2018 – 2018 Duke University
Teaching & PhD PhD Students Benjamin Andre De Blois Kargere, Qiming Sun, Frédéric Laurent Lardet, Taiqi Lian, Felix Bauer Courses Ecohydrological modeling ENV-411 This course provides the theoretical basis for understanding and modeling the interactions between the hydrologic cycle, vegetation, soil, climate, and human society. Hydrology
Nicolas Louis DerlonTeaching & PhD Courses Treatment and valorization of water and waste ENV-304 Water and waste management systems in Switzerland: from end-of-pipe treatment to closed-loop system. Principles of water supply, evacuation and treatment. Basis for the dimensioning of networks and treatment plants. Management, treatment and valorization of urban waste. Visits. French language.
Ayush AgarwalCurrent work
Developing size resolved elemental analysis methods for characterizing nano-objects in process effluents and environmental samples
Education PhD | Energy - Chemistry and Chemical Engineering 2020 – 2020 EPFL – École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne / Paul Scherrer Institute M.Sc. | Chemical Engineering for Energy and Environment 2017 – 2019 KTH Royal Institute of Technology B.E. (Hons.) | Chemical Engineering 2011 – 2015 Birla I
Victor Carle Adrien BoureauExpertise
Aberration-corrected TEM and STEMQuantative microscopyElectron diffractionStrain mapping (GPA, precession 4D-STEM)Electric and magnetic field mapping (electron holography, DPC, 4D-STEM)
Teaching & PhD Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Pierpaolo Ranieri Courses Scanning and Analytical Transmission Electron Microscopy MSE-735 This intensive course discusses advanced TEM techniques such as: scanning TEM; analytical TEM using EELS and EDX; aberration corrected imaging; and image s
