Pierre DillenbourgA former teacher in elementary school, Pierre Dillenbourg graduated in educational science (University of Mons, Belgium). He started his research on learning technologies in 1984. In 1986, he has been on of the first in the world to apply machine learning to develop a self-improving teaching system. He obtained a PhD in computer science from the University of Lancaster (UK), in the domain of artificial intelligence applications for education. He has been assistant professor at the University of Geneva. He joined EPFL in 2002. He has been the director of Center for Research and Support on Learning and its Technologies, then academic director of Center for Digital Education, which implements the MOOC strategy of EPFL (over 2 million registrations). He is full professor in learning technologies in the School of Computer & Communication Sciences, where he is the head of the CHILI Lab: "Computer-Human Interaction for Learning & Instruction ». He is the director of the leading house DUAL-T, which develops technologies for dual vocational education systems (carpenters, florists,...). With EPFL colleagues, he launched in 2017 the Swiss EdTech Collider, an incubator with 80 start-ups in learning technologies. He (co-)-founded 4 start-ups, does consulting missions in the corporate world and joined the board of several companies or institutions. In 2018, he co-founded LEARN, the EPFL Center of Learning Sciences that brings together the local initiatives in educational innovation. He is a fellow of the International Society for Learning Sciences. He currently is the Associate Vice-President for Education at EPFL.
Daniel ThalmannProf. Daniel Thalmann is Honorary Professor at EPFL and Director of Research development at MIRALab Sarl. He has been Visiting Professor at The Institute for Media Innovation (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) from 2009 to 2017. He is a pioneer in research on Virtual Humans. His current research interests include Real-time Virtual Humans in Virtual Reality, crowd simulation, and 3D Interaction. Daniel Thalmann has been the Founder of The Virtual Reality Lab (VRlab) at EPFL, Switzerland, Professor at The University of Montreal and Visiting Professor/ Researcher at CERN, University of Nebraska, University of Tokyo, and National University of Singapore. Until October 2010, he was the President of the Swiss Association of Research in Information Technology and one Director of the European Research Consortium in Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM). He is coeditor-in-chief of the Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, and member of the editorial board of 6 other journals. Daniel Thalmann was member of numerous Program Committees, Program Chair and CoChair of several conferences including IEEE VR, ACM VRST, and ACM VRCAI. Daniel Thalmann has published more than 500 papers in Graphics, Animation, and Virtual Reality. He is coeditor of 30 books, and coauthor of several books including 'Crowd Simulation' (second edition 2012) and 'Stepping Into Virtual Reality' (2007), published by Springer. He received his PhD in Computer Science in 1977 from the University of Geneva and an Honorary Doctorate (Honoris Causa) from University Paul- Sabatier in Toulouse, France, in 2003. He also received the Eurographics Distinguished Career Award in 2010 and the 2012 Canadian Human Computer Communications Society Achievement Award. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Thalmann Patrick JermannAfter studies in Geneva (TECFA) and Pittsburgh (LRDC) I joined EPFL in 2003 to coordinate eLearning projects and conduct research in the field of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). Starting 2013 I am responsible for MOOCs production at the Center for Digital Education (CEDE).Former Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies and former Member of the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (iJCSCL). Specialties: Interaction analysis, research methods, statistical methods, prototyping, software development, pedagogical design.
Lyesse LalouiDirector, EPFL Soil Mechanics LaboratoryDirector, EPFL Civil Engineering SectionEditor in Chief, ElsevierMember of the Swiss Academy of Engineering SciencesFounding Partner, Geoeg & MeduSoilActive in academic research in the following institutions: Lausanne, EPFL, Durham, Duke University, Nanjing, Hohai UniversityProfessor Lyesse Laloui teaches at EPFL, where he directs the Soil Mechanics Laboratory as well as the Civil Engineering Section. He is a founding partner of the international engineering company Geoeg, and the start-up MeduSoil. In addition, he is an adjunct professor at Duke University, USA and an advisory professor at Hohai University, China as well as honorary director of the International Joint Research Center for Energy Geotechnics in China.He is the recipient of an Advance ERC grant for his BIO-mediated GEO-material Strengthening project. Editor in Chief of the Elsevier Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment journal, he is a leading scientist in the field of geomechanics and geo-energy. He has written and edited 13 books and published over 320 peer reviewed papers; his work is cited more than 6000 times with an h-index of 39 (Scopus). Two of his papers are among the top 1% in the academic field of Engineering. He has given keynote and invited lectures at more than 40 leading international conferences. He has received several international awards (IACMAG, RM Quigley, Roberval) and delivered honorary lectures (Vardoulakis, Minnesota; G.A. Leonards, Purdue; Kersten, Minnesota). He recently acted as the Chair of the international evaluation panel of Civil and Geological Engineering R&D Units of Portugal.Nov. 2019 For further information visit www.epfl.ch/labs/lms/ ; geoeg.net ; medusoil.com Denis GilletDenis Gillet received the Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in 1988, and the Ph.D. degree in Information Systems also from the EPFL in 1995. During 1992 he was appointed as Research Fellow at the Information Systems Laboratory of Stanford University in the United States. He is currently Maître d'enseignement et de recherche at the EPFL School of Engineering, where he leads the React research group. His current research interests include Technologies Enhanced Learning (TEL), Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Human Devices Interaction (HDI) and Optimal Coordination of Complex and Distributed Systems. Denis Gillet is affiliated at EPFL with the Center for Intelligent Systems and the Center for Digital Education.
Marilyne AndersenMarilyne Andersen is a Full Professor of Sustainable Construction Technologies and heads the Laboratory of Integrated Performance in Design (LIPID) that she launched in the Fall of 2010. She was Dean of the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) at EPFL from 2013 to 2018 and is the Academic Director of the Smart Living Lab in Fribourg. She also co-leads the Student Kreativity and Innovation Laboratory (SKIL) at ENAC. Before joining EPFL as a faculty, she was an Assistant Professor then Associate Professor tenure-track in the Building Technology Group of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning and the Head of the MIT Daylighting Lab that she founded in 2004. She has also been Invited Professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design in 2019. Marilyne Andersen owns a Master of Science in Physics and specialized in daylighting through her PhD in Building Physics at EPFL in the Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO) and as a Visiting Scholar in the Building Technologies Department of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Her research lies at the interface between science, engineering and architectural design with a dedicated emphasis on the impact of daylight on building occupants. Focused on questions of comfort, perception and health and their implications on energy considerations, these research efforts aim towards a deeper integration of the design process with daylighting performance and indoor comfort, by reaching out to various fields of science, from chronobiology and neuroscience to psychophysics and computer graphics. She is leveraging this research in practice through OCULIGHT dynamics, a startup company she co-founded, which offers specialized consulting services on daylight performance and its psycho-physiological effects on building occupants. She is the author of more than 200 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and international conferences and the recipient of several grants and awards including: the Daylight Award for Research (2016), eleven publication awards and distinctions (2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2019) including the Taylor Technical Talent Award 2009 granted by the Illuminating Engineering Society, the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Grant (2009), the Mitsui Career Development Professorship at MIT (2008) and the EPFL prize of the Chorafas Foundation awarded to her PhD thesis in Sustainability (2005). Her research or teaching has been supported by professional, institutional and industrial organizations such as: the Swiss and the U.S. National Science Foundations, the Velux Foundation, the European Horizon 2020 program, the Boston Society of Architects, the MIT Energy Initiative and InnoSuisse. She was the leader and faculty advisor of the Swiss Team and its NeighborHub project, who won the U.S. Solar Decathlon 2017 competition with 8 podiums out of 10 contests. She is a member of the Board of the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction and Head of its Academic Committee. She is also a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Building and Environment by Elsevier, and of the journals LEUKOS (of the Illuminating Engineering Society) and Buildings and Cities, by Taylor and Francis. She is expert to the Innovation Council of InnoSuisse and Founding member as well as Board member of the Foundation Culture du Bâti (CUB), and is also founding member of the Daylight Academy and an active member of several committees of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) and International Commission on Illumination (CIE).
