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
Pablo Antolin SanchezTeaching & PhD PhD Students Philipp Christoph Weder, Davor Dobrota Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Ondine Chanon Courses Analysis III MATH-202(c) The course studies the fundamental concepts of vector analysis and Fourier-Laplace analysis with a view to their use in solving multidisciplinary problems in scientific engineering. Analysis III (for IC) MATH-203(d) The course studies the fundamental concepts of vector analysis and Fourier-Laplace analysis with a view to thei
Tara HabibiCurrent Work
SafeShore ProjectPrincipal Investigator Climate change will lead to significant sea level rise and more frequent, intense storm surges. These developments pose severe risks to coastal regions, threatening human lives, cultural heritage, and economic stability. Conventional shoreline protection methods, such as seawalls and armour blocks, have proven effective. However, their reliance on heavy concrete makes them slow to construct and environmentally unsustainable. To address these challenges, t
Konstantinos KarapiperisKostas Karapiperis is an Assistant Professor at EPFL directing the Data-Driven Mechanics Laboratory (LMD). His research lies at the intersection of mechanics, multiscale modeling, and data science, with applications ranging from geomaterials to structural materials. Prior to EPFL, he worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering of ETH Zürich, supported by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship. He holds a PhD in Applied Mechanics and a Minor in Applie
Eleni StavropoulouCurrent work
CO2 storage (geological sequestration)Caprock characterisationExperimental study of interfaces of geomaterialsMicro-structural study of geomaterials with in-situ 3D imaging
Dr. Eleni Stavropoulou is leading the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) activities of the Laboratory of Soil Mechanics (LMS) in EPFL. She received her PhD in Geomechanics in 2017 from the University Grenoble Alpes (France).Her research has been focusing on the characterisation of natural geomaterials in the context of contemp
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
Gopal Narmada NaiduExpertise
Researcher with 8+ years of experience in computational physics and multiphysics modeling, focused on numerical simulation of light–matter interactions and photon propagation. Proficient in FEM, FDTD, and Monte Carlo methods to model energy conversion and optical behavior, with additional expertise in AI/ML techniques for model optimization and design exploration. Strong background in photonic devices, photo-thermal, thermo-optical effects, and nanostructure engineering. Adept at translating compl
Elena RaveraTeaching & PhD Courses Terra Epidermis PENS-211 This transversal project aims to test around a case study chosen, the specifics of " reverse soil ." On a chose site, students will be invited to propose a single technical and architectural gesture, and synthesize their concept graphically.
Angelica TuttolomondoExpertise
Dr. Tuttolomondo specializes in the fields of unsaturated soils, chemo-mechanical modeling of active clays, undrained processes, THCM modeling, in-situ stress estimation, and in-situ suction measurement. These competencies are integral to advancing geotechnical engineering, particularly in applications related to environmental protection and geo-energy.
Mission
Her mission is to advance reliable and sustainable geo-energy technologies by bridging the gap between fundamental geomechanics research a
Johan Alexandre Philippe GaumeI started my scientific career in 2008 at the Grenoble University in the IRSTEA laboratory where I did my master's thesis on the rheology of dense granular materials using the discrete element method. In the same lab, I followed with a PhD on the numerical modeling of the release depth of extreme avalanches using a combined mechanical-statistical approach and spatial extreme statistics. In 2013 I obtained a postdoc position at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Davos where I was in charge of developing and applying numerical models to improve the evaluation of avalanche release conditions and thus avalanche forecasting. While my PhD was mostly theoretical and numerical, my postdoc in Davos allowed me to gain a practical expertise by participating in laboratory and field experiments which helped to validate the models I develop. In 2016, I was awarded a SNF grant to work as a research and teaching associate in CRYOS at EPFL on the multiscale modeling of snow and avalanche processes. I developed discrete approaches to model snow micro-structure deformation and failure in order to evaluate constitutive snow models to be used at a larger scale in continuum models. I also developed numerical models for wind-driven snow transport. In 2017, I was a Visiting Scholar at UCLA to work on a Material Point Method (MPM) to simulate both the initiation and propagation of snow avalanches in a unified manner. The UCLA MPM model was initially developed for the Disney movie "Frozen" and has been modified and enriched based on Critical State Soil Mechanics to model the release and flow of slab avalanches. The results of this collaboration have been published in Nature Communications. In 2018, I was awarded the SNF Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship and became professor at EPFL and head of SLAB, the Snow and Avalanche Simulation Laboratory. At SLAB, we study micro-mechanical failure and fracture propagation of porous brittle solids, with applications in snow slab avalanche release. We also simulate avalanche dynamics and flow regime transitions over complex 3D terrain through the development of new models (depth-resolved and depth-averaged) based on MPM.In 2020, I obtained a SPARK grant to develop a new approach to simulate and better understand complex process chains in gravitational mass movements, including permafrost instabilities, rock, snow and ice avalanches and transitions to debris flows.
Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida ReisPedro M. Reis is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, where he is the Director of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. Prof. Reis received a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Manchester, UK (1999), a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Mathematics (Part III Maths) from St. John’s College and DAMTP, University of Cambridge (2000), and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Manchester (2004). He was a postdoc at the City College of New York (2004-2005) and at the CNRS/ESPCI in Paris (2005-2007). He joined MIT in 2007 as an Instructor in Applied Mathematics. In 2010 he moved to MIT’s School of Engineering, with dual appointments in Mechanical Engineering and Civil & Environmental Engineering, first as the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor and, since the summer of 2014 as Gilbert W. Winslow Associate Professor. In October 2013, the Popular Science magazine named Prof. Reis to its 2013 “Brilliant 10” list of young stars in Science and Technology. He has received the 2014 CAREER Award (NSF), the 2016 Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award (Applied Mechanics Division of the ASME), the 2016 GSOFT Early Career Award for Soft Matter Research (APS), he is a Fellow of the APS, and he is the 2021 President of the Society of Engineering Science (SES).
Nicolas BoumalTeaching & PhD PhD Students Andreea-Alexandra Musat Past EPFL PhD Students Christopher Criscitiello, Quentin Rebjock Courses Continuous optimization MATH-329 This course introduces students to continuous, nonlinear optimization. We study the theory of optimization with continuous variables (with full proofs), and we analyze and implement important algorithms to solve constrained and unconstrained problems. Linear Algebra MATH-111(e) The purpose of the course is to introduce
Ali H. SayedAli H. Sayed is Dean of Engineering at EPFL, Switzerland, where he also leads the Adaptive Systems Laboratory. He has also served as Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Electrical Engineering at UCLA. He is recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher and is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering. He is also a member of the World Academy of Sciences and served as President of the IEEE Signal Processing Society during 2018 and 2019.
Dr. Sayed is an author/co-author of over 570 scholarly publications and six books. His research involves several areas
including adaptation and learning theories, data and network sciences, statistical inference, and multiagent systems.
His work has been recognized with several major awards including the 2022 IEEE Fourier Award, the 2020 Norbert Wiener Society Award and the 2015 Education Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society, the 2014 Papoulis Award from the European Association for Signal Processing, the 2013 Meritorious Service Award and the 2012 Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society, the 2005 Terman Award from the American Society for Engineering Education, the 2005 Distinguished Lecturer from the IEEE Signal Processing Society, the 2003 Kuwait Prize, and the 1996 IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize. His publications have been awarded several Best Paper Awards from the IEEE (2002, 2005, 2012, 2014) and EURASIP (2015). He is a Fellow of IEEE, EURASIP, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); the publisher of the journal Science.
