Frédéric CourbinAfter his studies in fundamental physics at the University of Paris-XI (Orsay, France), Frédéric Courbin carried out his PhD work between the Astrophysics Institute of the University of Liège (Belgium), Paris Observatory (France), and the European Southern Observatory (Germany). In 1999, he left Europe for three years, taking advantage of the clear skies of Chile to carry out his research using the brand new Very Large Telescope, constructed by Europe in the Atacama desert. In 2004, after two years of a Marie Curie fellowship at the University of Liège, he joint the Laboratory of Astrophysics, where he is now Professor. His main fields of activity are in observational cosmology and extragalactic astrophysics as well as in image and signal processing. In 2018, he was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant in connection with his work in cosmology with gravitational lenses. At EPFL, he is a member of the committee for the Physics Doctoral School since 2013 and has been the tutor of more than 30 PhD students. He is a member of the EPFL Council for the Faculty of Basic Sciences since 2018 and a member of the School Assembly since 2020.
Klaus KernKlaus Kern is Professor of Physics at EPFL and Director and Scientific Member at the Max-Planck-Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany. He also is Honorary Professor at the University of Konstanz, Germany. His present research interests are in nanoscale science, quantum technology and in microscopy at the atomic limits of space and time. He holds a chemistry degree and PhD from the University of Bonn and a honorary doctors degree from the University of Aalborg. After his doctoral studies he was staff scientist at the Research Center Jülich and visiting scientist at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill before joining the Faculty of EPFL in 1991 and the Max-Planck-Society in 1998. Professor Kern has authored and coauthored close to 700 scientific publications, which have received nearly 60‘000 citations. He has served frequently on advisory committees to universities, professional societies and institutions and has received numerous scientific awards and honors, including the 2008 Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz Prize and the 2016 Van‘t Hoff Prize. Prof. Kern has also educated a large number of leading scientists in nanoscale physics and chemistry. During the past twenty-five years he has supervised one hundred PhD students and sixty postdoctoral fellows. Today, more than fifty of his former students and postdocs hold prominent faculty positions at Universities around the world.
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.
Nava SetterNava Setter completed MSc in Civil Engineering in the Technion (Israel) and PhD in Solid State Science in Penn. State University (USA) (1980). After post-doctoral work at the Universities of Oxford (UK) and Geneva (Switzerland), she joined an R&D institute in Haifa (Israel) where she became the head of the Electronic Ceramics Lab (1988). She began her affiliation with EPFL in 1989 as the Director of the Ceramics Laboratory, becoming Full Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in 1992. She had been Head of the Materials Department in the past and more recently has served as the Director of the Doctoral School for Materials.
Research at the Ceramics Laboratory, which Nava Setter directs, concerns the science and technology of functional ceramics focusing on piezoelectric and related materials: ferroelectrics, dielectrics, pyroelectrics and also ferromagnetics. The work includes fundamental and applied research and covers the various scales from the atoms to the final devices. Emphasis is given to micro- and nano-fabrication technology with ceramics and coupled theoretical and experimental studies of the functioning of ferroelectrics.
Her own research interests include ferroelectrics and piezoelectrics: in particular the effects of interfaces, finite-size and domain-wall phenomena, as well as structure-property relations and the pursuit of new applications. The leading thread in her work over the years has been the demonstration of how basic or fundamental concepts in materials - particularly ferroelectrics - can be utilized in a new way and/or in new types of devices. She has published over 450 scientific and technical papers.
Nava Setter is a Fellow of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the World Academy of Ceramics. Among the awards she received are the Swiss-Korea Research Award, the ISIF outstanding achievement award, and the Ferroelectrics-IEEE recognition award. In 2010 her research was recognized by the European Union by the award of an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant. Recently she received the IEEE-UFFC Achievement Award (2011),the W.R. Buessem Award(2011), the Robert S. Sosman Award Lecture (American Ceramics Society) (2013), and the American Vacuum Society Recognition for Excellence in Leadership (2013).
Pierre MagistrettiPierre J. Magistretti is an internationally-recognized neuroscientist who has made significant contributions in the field of brain energy metabolism. His group has discovered some of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie the coupling between neuronal activity and energy consumption by the brain.
This work has considerable ramifications for the understanding of the origin of the signals detected with the current functional brain imaging techniques used in neurological and psychiatric research (see for example Magistretti et al, Science, 283: 496 497, 1999). He is the author of over 100 articles published in peer-reviewed journals.
He has given over 80 invited lectures at international meetings or at universities in Europe and North America, including the 2000 Talairach Lecture at the Functional Mapping of the Human Brain Conference. In November 2000 he has been a Mc Donnel Visiting Scholar at Washington University School of Medicine.
Pierre J. Magistretti is the President-Elect (2002 2004) of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) which has a membership of over 15000 European neuroscientists. He has been first president of the Swiss Society for Neuroscience (1997-1999) and the first Chairman of the Department of Neurosciences of the University of Lausanne (1996 1998).
Pierre J. Magistretti is Professor of Physiology (since 1988) at the University of Lausanne Medical School. He has been Vice-Dean of the University of Lausanne Medical School from 1996 to 2000. Pierre Magistretti, is Director of the Brain Mind Institute at EPFL and Director of the Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience of the University of Lausanne and CHUV. He is also Director of the NCCR SYNAPSY "the synaptic bases of mental diseases".
POSITIONS AND HONORS
MAIN POSITION HELD
1988-2004 Professor of Physiology, University of Lausanne Medical School
1996-2000 Vice-Dean for Preclinical Departments, University of Lausanne Medical School
2001-2004 Chairman, Department of Physiology, University of Lausanne Medical School
2004-present Professor and Director, Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry, University of Lausanne Medical School and Hospitals (UNIL-CHUV) (Joint appointment with EPFL)
2005-2008 Professor and Co-Director, Brain Mind Institute, Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne (Joint appointment with UNIL-CHUV)
2007-present Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of Centre dImagerie Biomédicale (CIBM), an Imaging Consortium of the Universities, University Hospitals of Lausanne and Geneva and of Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
2008-present Professor and Director, Brain Mind Institute, Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne Joint appointment with UNIL-CHUV)
2010-present Director, National Center for Competence in Research (NCCR)
The synaptic bases of mental diseases of the Swiss National Science Foundation
2010-present Secretary General, International Brain Research Organization (IBRO)
MAIN HONORS AND AWARDS
1997 Recipient of the Theodore-Ott Prize of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences
2001 Elected Member of Academia Europaea
2001 Elected Member of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, ad personam
2002 Recipient of the Emil Kraepelin Guest Professorship, Max Planck Institute für Psychiatry, Münich
2006 Elected Professor at Collège de France, Paris, International Chair 2007-2008
2009 Goethe Award for Psychoanalytic Scholarship, Canadian Psychological Association
2011 Camillo Golgi Medal Award, Golgi Fondation
2011 Elected Member of the American College of NeuroPsychopharmacology (ACNP)
