Luc ThévenazLuc Thévenaz received in 1982 the M.Sc. degree in astrophysics from the Observatory of Geneva, Switzerland, and in 1988 the Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He developed at this moment his field of expertise, i.e. fibre optics. In 1988 he joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL) where he currently leads a research group involved in photonics, namely fibre optics and optical sensing. Research topics include Brillouin-scattering fibre sensors, nonlinear fibre optics, slow & fast light and laser spectroscopy in gases. His main achievements are: - the invention of a novel configuration for distributed Brillouin fibre sensing based on a single laser source, resulting in a high intrinsic stability making for the first time field measurements possible, - the development of a photoacoustic gas trace sensor using a near infra-red semiconductor laser, detecting a gas concentration at the ppb level, - the first experimental demonstration of optically-controlled slow & fast light in optical fibres, realized at ambient temperature and operating at any wavelength since based on stimulated Brillouin scattering. The first negative group velocity of light was also realized in optical fibres using this approach. In 1991, he visited the PUC University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he worked on the generation of picosecond pulses in semiconductor lasers. In 1991-1992 he stayed at Stanford University, USA, where he participated in the development of a Brillouin laser gyroscope. He joined in 1998 the company Orbisphere Laboratories SA in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, as Expert Scientist to develop gas trace sensors based on photoacoustic laser spectroscopy. In 1998 and 1999 he visited the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejon, South Korea, where he worked on fibre laser current sensors. In 2000 he co-founded the spin-off company Omnisens that is developing and commercializing advanced photonic instrumentation. In 2007 he visited Tel Aviv University where he studied the all-optical control of polarization in optical fibres. During winter 2010 he stayed at the University of Sydney where he studied applications of stimulated Brillouin scattering in chalcogenide waveguides. In 2014 he stayed at the Polytechnic University of Valencia where he worked on microwave applications of stimulated Brillouin scattering. He was member of the Consortium in the FP7 European Project GOSPEL "Governing the speed of light", was Chairman of the European COST Action 299 "FIDES: Optical Fibres for New Challenges Facing the Information Society" and is author or co-author of some 480 publications and 12 patents. He is now Coordinator of the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks FINESSE (FIbre NErve Systems for Sensing). He is co-Executive Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Nature Light: Science & Applications" and is Member of the Editorial Board (Associate Editor) for the journal "APL Photonics" & "Laser & Photonics Reviews". He is also Fellow of both the IEEE and the Optical Society (OSA).
Henrik Moodysson RønnowHenrik Ronnow was born in Copenhagen in 1974. He was awarded his master's degree in physics in 1996. Having earned his doctorate in 2000, he left Denmark for training at the Laue-Langevin Institute in Grenoble. Between 2000 and 2002, he held a Marie Curie Fellowship hosted by the Atomic Energy Commission. In 2002 he was appointed as an invited researcher at the NEC Laboratories in Princeton, then at the University of Chicago's James Franck Institute. In 2003, he became a researcher at the Laboratory for Neutron Scattering (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich) and at the Paul Scherrer Institute. In 2007 he was appointed Assistant Professor at Ecole Polytechnique federale de Lausanne (EPFL). In 2012 he was promoted to Associate Professor. Profession 2012- Associate Professor, Laboratory for Quantum Magnetism, EPFL, Switzerland 2007-2012 Assistant Professor, Laboratory for Quantum Magnetism, EPFL, Switzerland 2003-2006 Scientist, Laboratory for Neutron Scattering, ETH-Zürich & Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland 2002-2003 Visiting Scientist, NEC-Laboratories Inc., Princeton, and James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, USA 2000-2002 Marie Curie Fellowship funded by the EU, hosted by Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, Grenoble, France 2000 Postdoc, Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France 1996 Research assistant, Risø National Laboratory, Denmark Education 2000 Ph.D. in Physics, Risø National Laboratory and University of Copenhagen: Aspects of quantum magnetism in one, two and three dimensions 1996 M.Sc. in Physics, University of Copenhagen: Magnetic properties of holmium-erbium alloys 1995 B.Sc in Mathematics, University of Copenhagen 1994 B.Sc in Physics, University of Copenhagen 1992 High school graduate, Natural Sciences, Scolae Academiae Sorana
Cécile HébertCécile Hébert was born in France in 1970. She obtained her Ingeneer degree (physics) and her PhD degree (design of a new energy filter for transmission electron microscopy, under the direction of Prof. B. Jouffrey) at the Ecole Centrale in Paris.
As a post doc with Prof. P. Schattschneider, she was working on the calculation of the fine structure of ionisation edges in EELS. As a research assistant at the Vienna University of Technology, she was one of the main participant to the CHIRALTEM project dealing with the measurement of magnetic circular dichroism in the electron microscope.
Kay SeverinKay Severin was born in Germany in 1967. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1995 with a thesis in the group of Prof. W. Beck, University of Munich. Subsequently, he joined the group of Prof. M. R. Ghadiri as a postdoctoral fellow. In 1997, he started independent research projects ("Habilitation") at the Department of Chemistry, University of Munich. In 2001, he became assistant professor at the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL). Since 2009, he is full professor at the same institute.
Awards: Bayerischer Habilitations Förderpreis (1997), ADUC award of the year (2001), Heinz Maier-Leibnitz award of the DFG (2001), award of the Karl-Ziegler foundation (2001), Arnold Sommerfeld award of the Bavarian Academy of Science (2001), Werner Prize of The Swiss Chemical Society (2003), Otto Roelen Medal of the DECHEMA (2005), award for chemistry of the Academy of Sciences, Göttingen (2007), Dalton Transactions European Lectureship (2008).
