Auke IjspeertAuke Ijspeert is a full professor at the EPFL, and head of the Biorobotics Laboratory (BioRob). He has a B.Sc./M.Sc. in physics from the EPFL (1995), and a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh (1999). He carried out postdocs at IDSIA and EPFL, and at the University of Southern California (USC). He then became a research assistant professor at USC, and an external collaborator at ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research institute) in Japan. In 2002, he came back to the EPFL as an SNF assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in October 2009 and to full professor in April 2016. His primary affiliation is with the Institute of Bioengineering, and secondary affiliation with the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. His research interests are at the intersection between robotics, computational neuroscience, nonlinear dynamical systems, and machine learning. He is interested in using numerical simulations and robots to get a better understanding of sensorimotor coordination in animals, and in using inspiration from biology to design novel types of robots and adaptive controllers. (see for instance Ijspeert et al Science 2007, Ijspeert Science 2014, and Nyakatura et al Nature 2019). He is also investigating how to assist people with limited mobility using exoskeletons and assistive furniture. He is regularly invited to give talks on these topics (e.g. TED talk given at TED Global Geneva, Dec 8 2015). With his colleagues, he has received paper awards at ICRA2002, CLAWAR2005, IEEE Humanoids 2007, IEEE ROMAN 2014, CLAWAR 2015, SAB2018, and CLAWAR 2019. He is an IEEE Fellow, member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science magazine, and associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics and for the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics. He has acted as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (2009-2013) and for Soft Robotics (2018-2021). He was a guest editor for the Proceedings of IEEE, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Autonomous Robots, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, and Biological Cybernetics. He has been the organizer of 7 international conferences (BioADIT2004, SAB2004, AMAM2005, BioADIT2006, LATSIS2006, SSRR2016, AMAM2019), and a program committee member of over 50 conferences.
Sila KaratasSıla Karataş (1987, Ankara) was graduated as architect and awarded Master’s degree with the thesis “Building Marshall Plan in Turkey: The Formation of Workers’ Housing Question, 1946-1962” at the Middle East Technical University. In her thesis, she analyzed the formation of postwar workers’ housing discourse concerning the policy, planning and architecture of workers’ housing cooperatives within the framework of the ideological and spatial programming of the Marshall Plan and Americanization in Turkey. This research received Honourable Mention in 'Young Social Scientists Awards' of the Turkish Social Sciences Association. She worked as assistant and lecturer in Turkey between 2012-2019; took part in architectural and urban design studios as tutor and reviewer, gave Case Studies in Social Housing and Community Planning among other courses. Since September 2019, she is a PhD student and doctoral assistant at EPFL. Her PhD research concerns postwar workers’ housing programs of the Mediterranean countries participated in the Marshall Plan (France, Italy, Greece, Turkey), and is a comparative analysis of local models in relation to the transnational activity by the United States and multilateral organizations on postwar development, labour affairs and housing. This research is awarded a Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship for PhD and being funded by the Swiss Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Scholars and Artists (FCS).
Katrin BeyerSince 2017 Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), EPFL. Head of the Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics (EESD) Laboratory
2010-2017 Assistant Professor, EPFL.
2008-2010 Post-doctoral researcher, ETH Zürich.
2003-2007 Ph.D., Roseschool / Università di Pavia, Italy.
2001-2003 Ove Arup & Partners, Advanced Technology and Research Group, London.
2001 Diploma, Civil engineering, ETH Zürich.
Hannes BleulerSwiss, Born 19.2.1954
1973-78 ETH Zurich, M.S. in Electrical Engineering
1979-84 Teaching Assistant, Doctorate Student at ETH (Inst. of Mechanics)
1984 Ph.D. thesis in Mechatronics (magnetic bearings, Prof. G. Schweitzer)
1985-87 Research Engineer at Hitachi Ltd, Japan, Mechanical Engineering Research Laboratory;
1987 Invited researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Precision Mechatronics, Prof. K. Ono)
1988-91 Lecturer and Senior Assistant at ETH ; co-foundation of MECOS-Traxler AG
1991-95 Toshiba Chair of "Intelligent Mechatronics" and then regular Associate Professor at The University of Tokyo (Institute of Industrial Science)
1995-present Full Professor at EPFL Lausanne on microrobotics, biomedical robotics;
2000 Co-founder of xitact SA, Morges (robotic surgery instrumentation & simulators)
2002-2006 President Conference of Professors and Lecturers of EPFL, member of Assemblée de l'Ecole
2006 Chairman of ISMB10 (10th International Symposium on Magnetic Bearings, Martigny, Switzerland)
2006 Nomination as member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences (SATW)
Fernando Porté AgelFERNANDO PORTÉ AGEL Professor Director, Wind Engineering and Renewable Energy Laboratory (WIRE) School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) e-mail: fernando.porte-agel@epfl.ch RESEARCH INTERESTS Environmental fluid mechanics. Computational fluid dynamics. Atmospheric boundary layers. Turbulence. Large-eddy simulation. Wind energy. Wind engineering. Renewable energy. EDUCATION Ph.D. 1999 Johns Hopkins University, Environmental Engineering M.Sc. 1995 Hydrologic Engineering, IHE - Delft, The Netherlands B.S. 1992 Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, Spain ACADEMIC POSITIONS 2010-present: Full Professor, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland 2005-2009: Associate Professor, St. Anthony Falls Laboratory and Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA 2000-2005: Assistant Professor, St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS McKnight Presidential Fellow (2006-2009), University of Minnesota, USA McKnight Land-Grant Professorship (2003-2005), University of Minnesota, USA NASA Young Investigator Award (2001-2004), USA NSF CAREER Award (2001-2006), (Division of Earth Sciences Hydrological Sciences), USA Outstanding Student Paper Award: Hydrology Section, Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union; San Francisco, 1998. Research Award (1995-1997): La Caixa fellowship program; Barcelona, Spain. Research Award (1993-1995): Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs fellowship. Research Award (1990-1993): Spanish Civil Engineering Association. Aurèle ParriauxAurèle Parriaux studied geology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. He obtained his Ph.D. in hydrogeology and followed several postgraduate courses in hydrogeology, operational hydrology and geotechnics. He acquired a wide experience in engineering geology in the fields of motorway construction, geological hazards, underground water and geomaterials prospecting as well as the management of natural resources.
In 1991, he was appointed full Professor of Engineering Geology at EPFL and presently he is head of the Engineering and Environmental Geology Laboratory (GEOLEP) at the same institute. He leads a research team of about twenty people specializing in the fields of geological hazards and underground resources.
Professor Parriaux has significant teaching responsibilities. He teaches geology to students in 'Civil Engineering' and 'Environmental Sciences and Engineering'. Moreover, he teaches Engineering Geology at the Universitiy of Lausanne.
Parallel to his research and teaching, Aurèle Parriaux carries out expert appraisals in various fields of engineering and environmental geology. In particular, the recent appraisal of the compatibility between construction of tunnels and protection of groundwater resources.
Since the creation of the new School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, he participates in the teaching related to territory and landscape into which he brings the geological and geomorphologic component.
Aurèle Parriaux is active in several international organizations. He was chairman of the Swiss Hydrogeological Society for six years. From 2001 to 2006 he was Director of the Civil Engineering Section of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne.
In 2006, he published his book "Géologie: bases pour l'ingénieur". The second edition of this successful textbook has been published in 2009. In competition with 105 scientific books, Géologie : bases pour l'ingénieur received the Roberval Prize in 2007. The publisher CRC Press/Balkema, member of the Taylor & Francis Group, publishes an English translation of the book (Geology: basics for Engineers, 2009).
In December 2008, Prof. Parriaux was nominated Chevalier of the Order of Academic Palms by the Prime Minister of the Republic of France.
In September 2011, he left the EPFL to dedicate his time to being an independent expert. Prof. Parriaux is currently based at Chemin de Crêt de Plan 103 in La Conversion CH-1093 (www.parriauxgeo.ch). He is continuing his collaboration with EPFL, especially on the DEEP CITY Project and on landslide research. Philippe ThalmannPhilippe Thalmann was born in Lausanne in 1963. He graduated in Economics from the University of Lausanne in 1984, where he earned a postgraduate diploma in Economics in 1986. Mr. Thalmann entered the doctoral program in Economics of Harvard University (Cambridge, U.S.A.) in 1986, which he completed with a Ph.D. in 1990. His dissertation is entitled: "Essays in the Economics of Government Revenues and Spending". Returning to Switzerland, he was hired as an assistant professor first at the University of Geneva (teachings in Public Economics), then at the University of Lausanne (teachings in Econometrics and Introductory Economics). Since 1994, Mr. Thalmann is associate professor of Economics as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne.
