Luca Giovanni PattaroniSuite à une formation en Relations Internationales (Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales, Genève) et un DEA en sciences sociales (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris/Ulm), Luca Pattaroni a soutenu une thèse de sociologie en cotutelle (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris/ Université de Genève) sous la direction de Laurent Thévenot (EHESS) et Jean Kellerhals (Université de Genève). Après avoir occupé durant 5 ans un poste d'assistant à la Faculté de Droit (Université de Genève), il a été visiting scholar à lUniversité de Columbia (New York). Il travaille désormais au Laboratoire de Sociologie Urbaine (EPFL) et est associé au Groupe de Sociologie Politique et Morale de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (GSPM/EHESS). En 2011, il a été Professeur invité à l'Université Fédérale de Fluminense (Brésil). Ses recherches et publications portent sur les politiques urbaines et culturelles, l’habitat, les mouvements sociaux, les rythmes urbains et les grandes manifestation, l’évolution des modes de vie ainsi que, plus largement les enjeux du commun dans les villes contemporaines. Spécialiste des méthodes mixtes ainsi que de théorie sociologique et politique, il cherche à articuler une analyse fine du pluralisme des modes de vie et un questionnement sur les enjeux politiques et moraux de la composition dun monde commun.
Yves PedrazziniYves Pedrazzini is MER / Senior Scientist in the Laboratory of Urban Sociology (LaSUR), Faculty of Natural, Architectural and Build Environment (ENAC) of the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL). For more than 20 years, he analyses urban dynamics, social practices, urban cultures, violence and insecurity phenomena, in North and South countries. In 1987, he began ethnographical studies of youth armed gangs in Latin-American slums, developing innovative qualitative methods to make them real protagonists of the research process. Since 1997, Yves Pedrazzini added to his urban experience in Latin America (Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, Venezuela) new expertise of African urban contexts (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Senegal). He published many books and articles on urban violence and Security/insecurity issues, from a sociological and anthropological point of view.
Maxime Carl FelderMaxime Felder holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Geneva. His dissertation - "Building familiarity. Coexistence in an urban context" - dealt with how urbanites manage to coexist peacefully, in a residential context, without knowing each other personally. He is now involved in a new research project on cities' hospitality towards newcomers.
Martin VetterliMartin Vetterli was appointed president of EPFL by the Federal Council following a selection process conducted by the ETH Board, which unanimously nominated him.
Professor Vetterli was born on 4 October 1957 in Solothurn and received his elementary and secondary education in Neuchâtel Canton. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from ETH Zurich (ETHZ) in 1981, a Master’s of Science degree from Stanford University in 1982, and a PhD from EPFL in 1986. Professor Vetterli taught at Columbia University as an assistant and then associate professor. He was subsequently named full professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California at Berkeley before returning to EPFL as a full professor at the age of 38. He has also taught at ETHZ and Stanford University.
Professor Vetterli has earned numerous national and international awards for his research in electrical engineering, computer science and applied mathematics, including the National Latsis Prize in 1996. He is a fellow of both the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a member the US National Academy of Engineering. He has published over 170 articles and three reference works.
Professor Vetterli’s work on the theory of wavelets, which are used in signal processing, is considered to be of major importance by his peers, and his areas of expertise, including image and video compression and self-organized communication systems, are central to the development of new information technologies. As the founding director of the National Centre of Competence in Research on Mobile Information and Communication Systems, Professor Vetterli is a staunch advocate of transdisciplinary research.
Professor Vetterli knows EPFL inside and out. An EPFL graduate himself, he began been teaching at the school in 1995, was vice president for International Affairs and then Institutional Affairs from 2004 to 2011, and served as dean of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences in 2011 and 2012. In addition to his role as president of the National Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation, a position he held from 2013 to 2016, he heads the EPFL’s Audiovisual Communications Laboratory (LCAV) since 1995.
Professor Vetterli has supported more than 60 students in Switzerland and the United States in their doctoral work and makes a point of following their highly successful careers, whether it is in the academic or business world.
He is the author of some 50 patents, some of which were the basis for start-ups coming out of his lab, such as Dartfish and Illusonic, while others were sold (e.g. Qualcomm) as successful examples of technology transfer. He actively encourages young researchers to market the results of their work.
