Roberto CastelloRoberto Castello is a senior scientist and group leader at the EPFL Laboratory of Solar Energy and Building Physics. Physicist by training, he has extensive experience in collecting, classifying and interpreting large datasets using advanced data mining techniques and statistical methods. He received his MSc (2007) in Particle Physics and PhD (2010) in Physics and Astrophysics from the University of Torino. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Belgian National Research Fund (2011-2014) and at the CERN Experimental Physics Department (2015-2017) as a research fellow and data scientist. He is primary author of more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and he presented at major international conferences in the high energy physics domain.
In 2018 he joined the Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO-PB) to work on data mining and Machine Learning techniques for the built environment and renewable energy. His main research interests are: spatio-temporal modeling of renewable energy potential, energy consumption forecasting techniques, anomaly detection, and computer vision techniques for automated classification in the built environment.
He leads the group of Urban Data Mining, Intelligence and Simulation at LESO-PB and he is a member of the NRP75 Big Data project (HyEnergy) of the Swiss National Science Foundation. He is a member of the Swiss Competence Centre for Energy Research (SCCER) and deputy leader of the working group on Leveraging Ubiquitous Energy Data. He has served as a scientific committee member, workshop organizer and speaker at international conferences (ICAE 2020, Applied Machine Learning Days 2019 and 2020, CISBAT 2019 and 2021 and SDS2020).
Since 2017 he is member of the Geneva 2030 Ecosystem network, promoting the United Nations agenda towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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.
Christoph FreiSince 2009
Secretary General
, World Energy Council (WEC).
Since 2006
Titulary Professor
, Advisor to the President of EPFL and EPFL's Energy Center on energy issues. Expertise: International energy & environment policy and strategy.
2001-2009
Senior Director
, Energy Industries & Strategy at the World Economic Forum (WEF); Member of the Forum's Executive Council.
2002-2003
Lecturer
, postgraduate course on "Energy Systems in an Economywide Framework", for the Master of Science in Energy Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL).
2001-2003
European Master in Applied Ethics
, Ethics Centre, University of Zurich; specialisation in multi-stakeholder theory.
2000-2001
Research fellow
at the Centre for Energy Policy and Economics of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology co-lecturing "Socio-economic aspects of Energy Systems".
1996-2000
Dr ès Sciences
, PhD thesis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) and the Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen (PSI). Domain: Modelling the links between Energy Policy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Economic Welfare.
1997-2000
Master (DES) in Econometrics
at the University of Geneva.
1995-1997
Master of Science in Energy Systems
at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL); specialisation in Energy Economics and Management.
1995-2001
Research fellow
at the Laboratory of Energy Systems of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL).
1989-1995
Dipl. El.-Ing.
, graduate studies in Electrical Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, Zürich (ETHZ) (4th year in Lausanne); training/diploma thesis at the Institute of Microtechnique, University of Neuchâtel (UNINE) (solar cells research). 