Berend SmitBerend Smit received an MSc in Chemical Engineering in 1987 and an MSc in Physics both from the Technical University in Delft (the Netherlands). He received in 1990 cum laude PhD in Chemistry from Utrecht University (the Netherlands). He was a (senior) Research Physicists at Shell Research from 1988-1997, Professor of Computational Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) 1997-2007.
In 2004 Berend Smit was elected Director of the European Center of Atomic and Molecular Computations (CECAM) Lyon France. Since 2007 he is Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at U.C. Berkeley and Faculty Chemist at Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Since 2014 he has been director of the Energy Center at EPFL.
Alexander TagantsevALEXANDER K. TAGANTSEV received the B.S. degree from St. Petersburg State University, in 1974, and Ph.D. degree from Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1982 in solid state physics. Before 1993, he worked in Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, (1991-1993, head of laboratory), and St. Petersburg State Technical University (1991-1993, professor). He joined the ceramics laboratory of EPFL in 1993 where he was leading ( up to 2016) the section for Modeling and theory of Electroceramics. He is also currently engaged as a principle research fellow at Ioffe institute (St. Petersburg, Russia). Tagantsev is a theoretician of a broad domain of expertise from ferroelectricity and phonon physics to electrodynamics of superconductors and quantum optics. He is the author of key results on the theory of microwave dielectrics loss, dielectric polarization in crystalline materials, and relaxor ferroelectricity. He is also known in the field of ferroelectric thin films for elucidating works on the polarization switching and degradation in these systems. He authored or co-authored more than 300 scientific articles and two monograph (on domains in ferroics and tunable film bulk acoustic wave resonators). In 2007, Prof. Tagantsev was entitled to the Honors for lifetime achievement in the field of integrated ferroelectrics by the International Symposium on Integrated Ferroelectrics.
André MerbachAndré Merbach was born in Lausanne in 1940. He studied at the Polytechnical School of the University of Lausanne (Pelet and A3E2PL Awards), where he obtained in 1962 his degree in Chemical Engineering with a diploma research work in organic chemistry. In 1964, the University of Lausanne awarded him a PhD for his research on quaternary solubility systems with formation of mixed crystals. He spent then a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied the ionisation of strong electrolytes by NMR.
Upon his return in 1965 to the Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry at the University of Lausanne, he was asked to create a research and teaching program in Coordination Chemistry. He was appointed Assistant Professor in 1971.
In 1973, the Swiss Chemical Society awarded him the Werner Prize and Medal for his research on the structure, the stability and the dynamics of metal halogen adducts by NMR and, the same year, was nominated Professor of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry.
He was a member of the Swiss National Foundation for Scientific Research in the division of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Engineering from 1985 until 1996. He represents Switzerland on the COST Chemistry Technical Committee (European Co-operation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research: 35 countries and 1000 research groups in chemistry) and has chaired this Committee from 1998 to 2000. He was the Chairman of the Management Committee of the COST Action D6 on Chemical Processes and Reactions under Extreme or Non-Classic Conditions (1992-1997).
He has organised the XXIXth International Conference in Coordination Chemistry (ICCC) in Lausanne in 1992. He has been awarded an honoris causa doctorate from the Lajos Kossuth University of Debrecen (Hungary) in 1993 for his work on elucidating reaction mechanisms in coordination chemistry utilising high pressure NMR. He has been called at the presidency of the Swiss Chemical Society (2001-2004). The University of Geneva awarded him an honoris causa doctorate in 2003.
Sofia Charlotta OlhedeSofia Olhede is a professor of Statistics at EPFL in Switzerland. She joined UCL prior to this in 2007, before which she was a senior lecturer of statistics (associate professor) at Imperial College London (2006-2007), a lecturer of statistics (assistant professor) (2002-2006), where she also completed her PhD in 2003 and MSci in 2000. She has held three research fellowships while at UCL: UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Springboard fellowship as well as a five-year Leadership fellowship, and now holds a European Research Council Consolidator fellowship. Sofia has contributed to the study of stochastic processes; time series, random fields and networks. Sofia was part of the multi-institutional team that set up the UK national data science institute, the Alan Turing Institute. She organised and served as chair of the science committee that developed the initial 500 000 pounds scientific programme of the institute; peer-reviewing over 100 workshop proposals and hosting over 30. She also chaired the first recruitment wave of the institute hiring 13 data scientists as a multi-university recruitment drive. Sofia was a member of the Royal Society and British Academy Data Governance Working Group, and the Royal Society working group on machine learning. Most recently she was one of 3 commissioners on a law society commission on the usage of algorithms in the justice system.
