Dario FloreanoProf. Dario Floreano is director of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). Since 2010, he is the founding director of the Swiss National Center of Competence in Robotics, a research program that brings together more than 20 labs across Switzerland. Prof. Floreano holds an M.A. in Vision, an M.S. in Neural Computation, and a PhD in Robotics. He has held research positions at Sony Computer Science Laboratory, at Caltech/JPL, and at Harvard University. His main research interests are Robotics and A.I. at the convergence of biology and engineering. Prof. Floreano made pioneering contributions to the fields of evolutionary robotics, aerial robotics, and soft robotics. He served in numerous advisory boards and committees, including the Future and Emerging Technologies division of the European Commission, the World Economic Forum Agenda Council, the International Society of Artificial Life, the International Neural Network Society, and in the editorial committee of several scientific journals. In addition, he helped spinning off two drone companies (senseFly.com and Flyability.com) and a non-for-profit portal on robotics and A.I. (RoboHub.org). Books
Manuale sulle Reti Neurali, il Mulino (in Italian), 1996 (first edition), 2006 (second edition)Evolutionary Robotics, MIT Press, 2000
Bio-Inspired Artificial Intelligence, MIT Press, 2008
Flying Insects and Robots, Springer Verlag, 2010
Jean-Louis ScartezziniDirector of EPFL Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (1994-present); Founder & Director of ENAC Institute of Infrastructures, Resources and Environment (2002-2009); Founder & Director of EPFL Doctoral Program in Environment (2002-2009); Co-Director of EPFL Institute of Building Technology (1994-1997); Associate Professor of Building Physics at EPFL (1994-1997); Associate Professor of Building Physics at University of Geneva (1990-1997); Group Leader & Research Fellow at the EPFL Solar Energy Research Group (1981-1989); Research Fellow at the Applied Geophysics Institute of University of Lausanne (1980-1981).
Christophe BallifChristophe Ballif is director of the Phototovoltaics and Thin Film Electronics Laboratoryb) (PV-Lab at the institute of microengineering (IMT) in Neuchâtel (part of the EPFL since 2009). The lab focus is on the science and technology of high efficiency heterojunction crystalline cells,so-called passivating contacts for solar cells, multi-junction solar cells include novel generation Perovskite on innovative optical high speed detector and on various macroelectronics application. It also deals with energy management with a focus on integration of solar electricity into the energy system. The PV-Lab has strongly contributed to technology transfer and industrialization of novel devices and full technology with numerous companies. Christophe Ballif graduated as a physicist from the EPFL in 1994, where he also obtained in 1998 his Phd degree working on novel PV materials. He accomplished his postdoctoral research at NREL (Golden, US) on compound semiconductor solar cells (CIGS and CdTe). He worked then at the Fraunhofer ISE (Ge) on crystalline silicon photovoltaics (monocrystalline and multi-crystalline) until 2003 and then at the EMPA in Thun (CH) before becoming full professor at the University of Neuchâtel IMT in 2004, taking over the chair of Prof. A. Shah. Since 2013, C.Ballif is also the director of the new CSEM PV-Center, also located in Neuchâtel. The CSEM PV-Center is focussing more on industrialisation and technology transfer in the field of solar energy, including solar electricity management and storage. At the core of the CSEM PV-center activities lies several "pilot lines" for various kinds of solar cells manufacturing, with a focus coating technologies, wet chemistry processes for crystalline silicon, metalisation techniques for solar cells, and a platform for developing "ideal packaging solutions and polymers" for PV modules. In addition, joined facitilites between CSEM and EPFL of over 800 m2 are available for modules manufacturing, measuring and accelerated aging. CSEM PV-center has also full team dedicated to storage and energy systems and operates a joined center with BFH in Biel for research on electrochemical storage. He (co-) authored over 500 journal and technical papers, as well as several patents. He is an elected member of the SATW, member of the scientific council of the Swiss AEE, and member of the board of the EPFL Energy center. In 2016, he recieved the Becquerel prize for his contributions to the field of high efficiency photovoltaics.
Edoardo CharbonEdoardo Charbon (SM’00 F’17) received the Elektrotechnik Diploma from ETH Zurich, the M.S. from the University of California at San Diego, and the Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1988, 1991, and 1995, respectively, all in electrical engineering and EECS. He has consulted with numerous organizations, including Bosch, X-Fab, Texas Instruments, Maxim, Sony, Agilent, and the Carlyle Group. He was with Cadence Design Systems from 1995 to 2000, where he was the architect of the company's initiative on information hiding for intellectual property protection. In 2000, he joined Canesta Inc., as the Chief Architect, where he led the development of wireless 3-D CMOS image sensors. Since 2002 he has been a member of the faculty of EPFL, where is a full professor since 2015. From 2008 to 2016 he was full professor and chair at the Delft University of Technology, where he spearheaded the university's effort on cryogenic electronics for quantum computing as part of QuTech. He has been the driving force behind the creation of deep-submicron CMOS SPAD technology, which is mass-produced since 2015 and is present in smartphones, telemeters, proximity sensors, and medical diagnostics tools. His interests span from 3-D vision, LiDAR, FLIM, FCS, NIROT to super-resolution microscopy, time-resolved Raman spectroscopy, and cryo-CMOS circuits and systems for quantum computing. He has authored or co-authored over 400 papers and two books, and he holds 23 patents. Dr. Charbon is a distinguished visiting scholar of the W. M. Keck Institute for Space at Caltech, a fellow of the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft, a distinguished lecturer of the IEEE Photonics Society, and a fellow of the IEEE.
Pierre-André FarinePierre-André Farine received the Doctoral and Engineering Degrees in Microtechnology from University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, respectively in 1984 and 1978, and the Engineering in Microtechnology from ETS Le Locle in 1974.
He was working 17 years for the Swiss watch industries (Swatch Group), including developments for high-tech products, such as pager watches, watches including integrated sensors such as pressure, compass, altimeter and temperature sensors for Tissot. He was also involved in prototypes developments for watches including GPS and cellular GSM phones.
Since 8 years, he is Professor in Electronics and Signal Processing at the Institute of Microtechnology IMT, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Full professor at EPFL since January 1st, 2009, he works in the field of low-power integrated products for portable devices, including microelectronics for wireless telecommunications, UWB and GNSS systems. He is Head of the Electronics and Signal Processing Laboratory ESPLAB of the EPFL IMT-NE. His laboratory works also for video and audio compression algorithms and their implementation in low power integrated circuits.
Mihai Adrian IonescuAdrian M. Ionescu is Full Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland. He received the B.S./M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Romania and the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, France, in 1989 and 1997, respectively. He has held staff and/or visiting positions at LETI-CEA, Grenoble, France and INP Grenoble, France and Stanford University, USA, in 1998 and 1999. Dr. Ionescu has published more than 600 articles in international journals and conferences. He received many Best Paper Awards in international conferences, the Annual Award of the Technical Section of the Romanian Academy of Sciences in 1994 and the Blondel Medal in 2009 for contributions to the progress in engineering sciences in the domain of electronics. He is the 2013 recipient of the IBM Faculty Award in Engineering. He served the IEDM and VLSI conference technical committees and was the Technical Program Committee (Co)Chair of ESSDERC in 2006 and 2013. He is a member of the SATW. He is director of the Laboratory of Micro/Nanoelectronic Devices (NANOLAB).
