Erwan MorellecERWAN MORELLEC is Swiss Finance Institute Professor and Professor of Finance at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. He is also the Head of the SFI Léman Centre, the Head of the SFI nation-wide PhD Program, and a CEPR Research Fellow. Formerly on the faculties of the Simon School of Business of the University of Rochester (USA) and HEC Lausanne (Switzerland), he holds a Ph.D. in Finance from HEC Paris.
Professor Morellec is most active in the areas of corporate finance and banking and has taught several courses on these subjects to undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral students. His recent research examines the effects of prudential regulation on banks' insolvency risk or the effects of financial market imperfections on corporate investment, financing, and risk management decisions. His research has been presented at major academic conferences and seminar series around the world and is published in top rated academic journals such as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Economic Theory. He has received several research and teaching awards.
Rüdiger FahlenbrachRUEDIGER FAHLENBRACH is Full Professor at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Formerly on the faculty of the Fisher College of Business of the Ohio State University (USA), he holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton). He holds a senior research chair from the Swiss Finance Institute, and is research member at the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). He has research interests in empirical corporate finance, in particular corporate governance and entrepreneurship. Ruediger Fahlenbrach has published in the leading academic journals in finance, including the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. Ruediger currently serves a three year term as elected director of the European Finance Association (2018-2020). He is Associate Editor of the Review of Finance, and former associate editor of the Review of Financial Studies and Financial Management. His research has been reported in many large-circulation newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Le Temps, NZZ, Handelsblatt, Forbes Magazine, USA Today, and Fortune Magazine.
Andreas FusterAndreas Fuster is an Associate Professor of Finance at Swiss Finance Institute @ EPFL and a Research Fellow at the CEPR. Previously, he worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Swiss National Bank. Andreas's main research interests are in empirical finance, macroeconomics, and behavioral economics. His recent work has focused in particular on the effects of technological advances on household credit markets. Andreas’s research has been published in academic journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Finance, and the Review of Financial Studies. Andreas obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard University and also holds an M.Phil. from Oxford University and a B.A. from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), all in economics.
Damir FilipovicDamir Filipovic holds the Swissquote Chair in Quantitative Finance and is Swiss Finance Institute Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Prior to this, he was head of the Vienna Institute of Finance and professor at the University of Vienna. He previously held the chair of financial and insurance mathematics at the University of Munich, and he was on the faculty of Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from ETH Zurich in 2000. Damir Filipovic worked as a scientific consultant for the Swiss Federal Office of Private Insurance from 2003 to 2004. There he co-developed the Swiss Solvency Test, which defines the regulatory capital requirement for all Swiss based insurance companies and groups. He is on the editorial board of several academic journals. His research interests include the term structure of interest rates, credit and volatility risk, quantitative methods in risk management, and stochastic processes. His papers have been published in a variety of academic journals including the Journal of Financial Economics, Mathematical Finance, Finance and Stochastics, and the Annals of Applied Probability. He is the author of a textbook titled Term-Structure Models.
François MaréchalPh D. in engineering Chemical process engineer
Researcher and lecturer in the field of computer aided process and energy systems engineering.
Lecturer in the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and environmental sciences engineering in EPFL.
I'm responsible for the Minor in Energy of EPFL and I'm involved in 3 projects of the Competence Center in Energy and Mobility (2nd generation biofuel, Wood SOFC, and gas turbine development with CO2 mitigation) in which i'm contributing to the energy conversion system design and optimisation.
Short summary of my scientific carrer
After a graduation in chemical engineering from the University of Liège, I have obtained a Ph. D. from the University of Liège in the LASSC laboratory of Prof. Kalitventzeff (former president of the European working party on computer aided process engineering). This laboratory was one of the pioneering laboratory in the field of Computer Aided Process Engineering.
In the group of Professor Kalitventzeff, I have worked on the development and the applications of data reconciliation, process modelling and optimisation techniques in the chemical process industry, my experience ranges from nuclear power stations to chemical plants. In the LASSC, I have been responsible from the developments in the field of rational use of energy in the industry. My first research topic has been the methodological development of process integration techniques, combining the use of pinch based methods and of mathematical programming: e.g. for the design of multiperiod heat exchanger networks or Mixed integer non linear programming techniques for the optimal management of utility systems. Fronted with applications in the industry, my work then mainly concentrated on the optimal integration of utility systems considering not only the energy requirements but the cost of the energy requirements and the energy conversion systems. I developed methods for analysing and integrating the utility system, the steam networks, combustion (including waste fuel), gas turbines or other advanced energy conversion systems (cogeneration, refrigeration and heat). The techniques applied uses operation research tools like mixed integer linear programming and exergy analysis. In order to evaluate the results of the utility integration, a new graphical method for representing the integration of the utility systems has been developed. By the use of MILP techniques, the method developed for the utility integration has been extended to handled site scale problems, to incorporate environmental constraints and reduce the water usage. This method (the Effect Modelling and Optimisation method) has been successfully applied to the chemical plants industry, the pulp and paper industry and the power plant. Instead of focusing on academic problems, I mainly developed my research based on industrial applications that lead to valuable and applicable patented results. Recently the methods developed have been extended to realise the thermoeconomic optimisation of integrated systems like fuel cells. My present R&D work concerns the application of multi-objective optimisation strategies in the design of processes and integrated energy conversion systems.
Since 2001, Im working in the Industrial Energy Systems Laboratory (LENI) of Ecole Polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) where Im leading the R&D activities in the field of Computer Aided Analysis and Design of Industrial Energy Systems with a major focus on sustainable energy conversion system development using thermo-economic optimisation methodologies. A part from the application and the development of process integration techniques, that remains my major field of expertise, the applications concern :
Rational use of water and energy in Industrial processes and industrial production sites : projects with NESTLE, EDF, VEOLIA and Borregaard (pulp and paper).Energy conversion and process design : biofuels from waste biomass (with GASNAT, EGO and PSI), water dessalination and waste water treatment plant (VEOLIA), power plant design (ALSTOM), Energy conversion from geothermal sources (BFE). Integrated energy systems in urban areas : together with SCANE and SIG (GE) and IEA annexe 42 for micro-cogeneration systems.
I as well contributed to the definition of the 2000 Watt society and to studies concerning the emergence of green technologies on the market in the frame of the Alliance for Global Sustainability.
