Jürg Alexander SchiffmannAfter obtaining his diploma in mechanical engineering from EPFL in 1999 he co-founded a start-up company dedicated to the design of gas bearing supported rotors. In 2005 he joined Fischer Engineering Solutions where he led the development of small-scale, gas bearing supported high-speed turbomachinery for fuel cell air supplies and for domestic scale heat pumps. In parallel he worked on his PhD, which he obtained from EPFL in 2008 and for which he was awarded the SwissElectric Research Award. He then joined the Gas Turbine Lab at MIT as a postdoctoral associate where he worked on foil bearings and on the experimental investigation of radial diffusers. In 2013 he was nominated assistant professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne where he founds the Laboratory for Applied Mechanical Design. His current research interest are in gas lubricated bearings, in aerodynamics of small-scale compressors and turbines and in automated design and optimization methodologies.
Dominique BonvinDominique Bonvin is Professor and Director of the Automatic Control Laboratory of EPFL. He received his Diploma in Chemical Engineering from ETH Zürich, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He worked in the field of process control for the Sandoz Corporation in Basel and with the Systems Engineering Group of ETH Zürich. He joined the EPFL in 1989, where his current research interests include modeling, control and optimization of dynamic systems. He served as Director of the Automatic Control Laboratory for the periods 1993-97, 2003-2007 and again since 2012, Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department in 1995-97 and Dean of Bachelor and Master Studies at EPFL for the period 2004-2011.
François AvellanProf. François Avellan, director of the EPFL Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines, graduated in Hydraulic Engineering from Ecole nationale supérieure d'hydraulique, Institut national polytechnique de Grenoble, France, in 1977 and, in 1980, got his doctoral degree in engineering from University of Aix-Marseille II, France. Research associate at EPFL in 1980, he is director of the EPFL Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines since 1994 and, in 2003, was appointed Ordinary Professor in Hydraulic Machinery. Supervising 37 EPFL doctoral theses, he was distinguished by SHF, Société hydrotechnique de France, awarding him the "Grand Prix 2010 de l'hydrotechnique". His main research domains of interests are hydrodynamics of turbine, pump and pump-turbines including cavitation, hydro-acoustics, design, performance and operation assessments of hydraulic machines. Prof. Avellan was Chairman of the IAHR Section on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems from 2002 to 2012. He has conducted successfully several Swiss and international collaborative research projects, involving key hydropower operators and suppliers, such as:
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Coordination for the FP7 European project n° 608532 "HYPERBOLE: HYdropower plants PERformance and flexiBle Operation towards Lean integration of new renewable Energies" (2013-2017);
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Deputy Head of the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research – Supply of Electricity (SCCER-SoE) to carry out innovative and sustainable research in the areas of geo-energy and hydropower for phase I (2013-2016) and Phase II (2017, 2010) to be approved.
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EUREKA European research projects: N° 4150 and N° 3246, "HYDRODYNA, Harnessing the dynamic behavior of pump-turbines", (2003-2011), N° 1605, "FLINDT, Flow Investigation in Draft Tubes", http://flindt.epfl.ch/, (1997-2002). N° 2418, "SCAPIN, Stability of Operation of Francis turbines, prediction and modeling";
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Swiss KTI/CTI research projects with GE Renewable Energy (anc. ALSTOM Hydro), Birr, ANDRITZ Hydro, Kriens, FMV, Sion, Groupe E, Granges-Paccot, Power Vision engineering, Ecublens and SULZER Pumps, Winterthur.
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ETH Domain, HYDRONET Project for the Competence Center Energy and Mobility, PSI Villingen.
Furthermore, he is involved in scientific expertise and independent contractual experimental validations of turbines and pump turbines performances for the main hydropower plants in the world. In recognition for his work as Convenor of the TC4 working group of experts in editing the IEC 60193 standard he received the "IEC 1906 Award" from the International Electrotechnical Commission. Giulia MarinoGiulia Marino has a Master’s degree in architecture in History and theories of restoration of monuments from the University of Florence (MA, 2003) and a PhD in architecture from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (PhD, 2014; EPFL Doctorate Award 2016). She obtained also a Postgraduate Master in Preservation of modern and contemporary built heritage from the University of Geneva (DEA, 2006).
Professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain, LOCI Faculty (UCLouvain, Bruxelles, Belgium) and researcher at the Laboratory of Techniques and Preservation of Modern Architecture at the EPFL (Switzerland), Giulia Marino is also consultant architect in heritage preservation.
Her scientific interests are centred on history of strategies for the conservation of the modern and contemporary heritage, and on the history of construction techniques and twentieth-century building services. She has developed these two main strands of research in her work, as well as the monumental heritage of the interwar period (e.g. Le Corbusier’s studio-apartment at 24NC, commissioned by the Foundation Le Corbusier, 2014, with a grant from the Getty Foundation) and in the extensive corpus of architectural production 1945-75 (e.g. Stratégies pour la cité du Lignon, 2009-2012; Europa Nostra Award 2013, SIA-Umsicht Award 2013).
She has given lectures in Europe (Paris, Lisbon, Brussels, Milan, Luxembourg, etc.) and internationally (Chandigarh, Mexico City, Tokyo, Montreal, etc.). She has also presented at numerous international conferences and published papers and articles (Werk, Arquitectura Viva, AMC, etc.) as well as a monograph on the CAF building in Paris (Picard, 2009, 270 p.), and a book on the restoration of the Cité du Lignon housing complex, as well as being responsible for its scientific conception and coordination (Infolio, 2012, 160 p.). She recently coedited the volume Building Environment and Interiors Comfort in 20th-Century Architecture: Understanding Issues and Developing Conservation Strategies (PPUR, 2016) and Les multiples vies de l’appartement-atelier. Le Corbusier (PPUR, 2017). After the monograph on the Buvette d’Evian by Jean Prouvé (Infolio, 2018) and the volume Avanchet-Parc, “cité de conception nouvelle et originale (Infolio, 2020), she is working on the publication of her PhD at the Éditions Métispresses and the proceedings of International Study Day “Restoring Jean Prouvé” (PPUR, 2021).
She is Vice President of Docomomo Switzerland since 2015 and member of the board of Docomomo Belgium since 2020.
She is also a member of ICOMOS Schweiz, the Swiss Heritage Society, the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects-SIA, Associazione italiana per la storia dell’ingegneria, Association francophone d’histoire de la construction and the Construction History Society.
Peter RyserDr. Peter Ryser is a Professor Emeritus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He has over three decades of research and teaching experience from various corporate and academic institutions. He was previously a Director at Siemens Building Technologies where he was responsible for R&D, product innovation and patents. Dr. Ryser has a Ph.D. in applied Physics from the University of Geneva, a Masters degree in Experimental Physics and an MBA.
Ljubisa MiskovicLjubisa Miskovic earned his Ph.D. degree in Automatic Control from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) under the co-supervision of Dominique Bonvin and Alireza Karimi, in 2006. He pursued his postdoctoral studies at the Centre for Systems Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Universite Catholique de Louvain with Michel Gevers before moving to the laboratory of Vassily Hatzimanikatis at the EPFL. In 2010, he became a research scientist. His research interests include systems biology, metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, data-driven control design, system identification, stochastic processes and estimation theory.
Alain WegmannAlain Wegmann joined EPFL in 1996. His interests are in techniques to better align business and IT. He developed, with his group and partners, the SEAM methods: SEAM for business (strategic thinking), SEAM for enterprise architecture (business/IT alignment) and SEAM for software (IT). The originality of SEAM is in the integration of generic systems thinking principles into discipline-specific methods. This integration has three benefits: (1) the possibility to relate the different disciplines (by having common systemic principles); (2) the capability to leverage on discipline-specific knowledge (by using the vocabulary and the heuristics of each discipline) and (3) to be more efficient in solving problems (by benefiting from the problem solving techniques developed in systems thinking). SEAM is currently applied in master courses and consulting. Consulting is done for start-ups developing their business and technology strategies and for large companies having service-oriented architecture projects.
Prior to joining EPFL, Alain Wegmann worked for 14 years with Logitech in software development/engineering management (Switzerland, Taiwan, US), manufacturing (Taiwan) and marketing (US). When he left Logitech, Alain Wegmann was engineering vice-president and marketing director for large accounts.
