Magalí Alejandra LingenfelderMagalí Lingenfelder is currently leading the Max Planck-EPFL Laboratory for Molecular Nanoscience. Her vision is to create atomically tailored interfaces for applications in two distinct areas of urgent technological and societal relevance: energy conversion and smart antimicrobial interfaces. To access the nanoscale, her group uses a combination of state-of-the-art scanning probe microscopy and solid state spectroscopy, allowing the study of kinetic processes in-situ under liquid flow and potential control conditions (operando electrocatalysis). She made seminal contributions to the field of metal-organic coordination networks on solid surfaces, and received the Otto Hahn medal in 2008 for the microscopic understanding of the chiral recognition process with submolecular resolution. She is a committed mentor, and since her relocation from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA to EPFL in 2013, she directed 3 MSc. theses, 4 PhD theses and 4 postdocs. She advocates for problem-oriented interdisciplinary research: she led 5 international research consortiums, delivered over 40 invited presentations and organized 9 conferences and 4 doctoral schools. In 2018, the Royal Society of Chemistry included her work in the first collection “Celebrating Excellence in Research: 100 Women of Chemistry”.
René SalathéRené Paul Salathé is Professor em. at EPFL since 2009. He is currently a technology consultant for several companies and he serves as an expert member of the Life Science team at the Swiss Innovation Agency (KTI/CTI) in Bern, on the scientific advisory board of the Fraunhofer-Institut für Lasertechnik ILT in Aachen, and he participates on expert panels for the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. He is a member of the Swiss Society for Optics and Microscopy, the European Optical Society, the Optical Society of America, a senior member of the IEEE, and a life time member of the Swiss Physical Society.
René Paul Salathé received the MS, PhD, and Habilitation (Privatdozent) degrees at the University of Bern in 1970, 1974, and 1979, respectively. Prior to his appointment at EPFL in 1989, he was directing the division "Material Testing and Technology" at the research and development center of the Swiss PTT. He has been active in the fields of semiconductor lasers, fibers, integrated optics, laser processing, and biomedical optics. The results of his research activities have been published more than 250 scientific contributions and 37 PhD theses at EPFL. Several start-up companies have been founded based on patents elaborated in his laboratory and/or by his PhD students. His actual research interests are in the areas of laser tweezers in micro-fluidics for biochemical applications and in optical fiber sensor applications.