Ursula RöthlisbergerU. Röthlisberger was born in Solothurn (Switzerland). In 1988 she made her diploma in Physical Chemistry in the group of Prof. Ernst Schumacher at the University of Berne (Switzerland). Her Ph.D. thesis was done in collaboration with Dr. Wanda Andreoni at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory in Rüschlikon. After finishing her Ph.D in 1991 she spent some time as a postdoctoral research assistant at the IBM Research Lab. From 1992-1995 she was a postdoctoral research assistant in the group of Prof. Michael L. Klein at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (USA). In 1994 she was awarded an advanced researcher fellowship (Profil 2) from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Before starting her Profile 2-fellowship she spent another year as postdoctoral research assistant in the group of Prof. Michele Parrinello at the Max-Planck-Institute for Solid State Physics in Stuttgart, Germany. In 1996 she moved as Profile 2-fellow to the ETH in Zurich, hosted by the group of Prof. Wilfred F. van Gunsteren. In 1997 she became Assistant Professor of Computer-Aided Inorganic Chemistry at the ETH Zurich.
Jean-Claude BünzliJean-Claude Bünzli was born in 1944. He earned a degree in chemical engineering in 1968 and a PhD in 1971 (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne) for his work on the kinetic behaviour of Nb and Ta pentachloride adducts. He spent two years at the University of British Columbia as a teaching postdoctoral fellow (photoelectron spectroscopy) and one year at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (physical organic chemistry).
Positions
He was appointed assistant-professor at the University of Lausanne in 1974 and started a research program on the spectrochemical properties of f-elements. He was promoted as a full professor of inorganic and analytical chemistry in 1980. He transferred to EPFL in 2001 where he directed the Laboratory of Lanthanide Supramolecular Chemistry until 2010.
From 2009 to 2013, he was World Class University Professor at Korea University (South Korea) helping developing a new research center for photovoltaics. In 20154-2015 he acted as visiting professor at FJIRSM (Fuzhou, Fujian), a laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
He presently holds the Dr Kennedy Wong Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Hong Kong Baptist University (3 months/year) and a position as Distinguished Scholar at University of Technology, Sydney (NSW, Australia, 1 month/year).
Administrative and reviewer duties
He acted as the elected Dean of the Faculty of Sciences (1990-1991) and as one of the elected Vice-Rectors of the University (1991-1995), in charge of students' affairs and of research programs in the field of biomedical sciences. He held a position of invited professor at the Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg in 1996 and at the Science University of Tokyo in 1998. In 1989, he founded the European Rare Earths and Actinide Society which coordinate international conferences in the field (cf. http://ereswww.epfl.ch).
He served as a World Bank Project Specialist within the framework of the Chinese Provincial Universities Development Project (Northwest China, 1989) and as a member of a Panel in charge of evaluating chemical research at Norwegian universities (1997). In 2001, he was hired as "Peer leader" for the evaluation of the Swiss universities of applied sciences. In 2005, he acted as a member of the "Physical Inorganic Panel" of the Science Foundation of Ireland and in 2006 he was nominated to the "Chemistry Panel" of the same foundation.
He is a member of the Editorial Board of Spectroscopy Letters, associate editor-in-chief of the Journal of Rare Earths, and senior editor of the Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths (54 volumes published to date).
Teaching
Regarding teaching, he has directed the joint project of the universities of Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchâtel and Fribourg "General chemistry for students enrolled in a life sciences curriculum", within the frame of the "Swiss virtual campus", a program sponsored by the Conference of Swiss universities and the Swiss federal office for science and education (2000-2004). Web site: http://chimge@epfl.ch
Research
His research is centered on lanthanide luminescent molecular and supramolecular edifices, with main applications in biology & medicine. He is the author or the co-author of 350 research papers, 260 contributed communications and has presented 285 invited conferences, seminars, and courses. He has collected >22800 citations (h-index 72). Jan Van HerleBorn in Antwerp, Belgium. In Switzerland since 1983. Became Swiss citizen in 2004 out of conviction of principles of democracy and bottom-up participation. No double nationality. Village Council Member for 2 five-year mandates in 2006-2016.
1987 : Chemist from Basel University (CH).
1988 : Post-graduate IT diploma from Basel Engineering School.
1989 : Industry internship ABB Baden (CH).
1990-1993 : PhD Thesis EPFL, on Solid Oxide Fuel Cell cathode reaction mechanisms.
1994-1995 : Japanese Postdoctoral Fellowship in Tsukuba, Japan, on ceramic powders.
1995-2000 : Researcher at EPFL, Dpt. Chemistry : project responsible in PPM2 (materials), FP4-BriteEuram, NEDO (Japan), Swiss Gas Union (CH, oxygen membranes).
1998-2000 : Masters in Energy Technology, EPFL.
2000 : Cofounder of HTceramix SA (EPFL spin-off), now based in Yverdon (14 employees). Taken over by SOLIDpower in 2007, now 250 employees with 70 MCHF raised.
2000 : 1st Assistant and lecturer at LENI (STI-IGM) : fuel cell group responsible, projects on biogas (Federal Energy Office), woodgas (CCEM), fuel cell stacking (CTI, FP6, FNS), ceramic separation membranes (COST, FNS), microtubes (STI Seed), stability/lifetime/reliability in fuel cells (Electricité de France, swisselectric research). Currently 4 Ph D theses ongoing, 14 theses concluded, of which 5 colateral with SB and IMX. M.E.R. since Nov 2008.
Total funding raised so far >18 MCHF (50% as main applicant; 30% outside CH; 20% industry).
Scientific output : >135 peer-reviewed publications, >120 conference papers, 40 invited presentations (8 keynotes), >70 granted proposals.
Fluent in 5 languages (Dutch, French, German ( Swiss-german), English, Spanish).
Philippe GilletPhilippe GILLET completed his undergraduate studies in Earth Science at Ecole normale supérieure de la rue dUlm (Paris). In 1983 he obtained a PhD in Geophysics at Université de Paris VII and joined Université de Rennes I as an assistant. Having obtained a State Doctorate in 1988, he became a Professor at this same university, which he left in 1992 to join Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon.
The first part of his research career was devoted to the formation of mountain ranges particularly of the Alps. In parallel, he developed experimental techniques (diamond anvil cells) to recreate the pressure and temperature prevailing deep inside planets in the lab. These experiments aim at understanding what materials make up the unreachable depths of planets in the solar system.
In 1997, Gillet started investigating extraterrestrial matter. He was involved in describing meteorites coming from Mars, the moon or planets which have disappeared today and explaining how these were expelled from their original plant by enormous shocks which propelled them to Earth. He also participated in the NASA Stardust program and contributed to identify comet grains collected from the tail of Comet Wild 2 and brought back to Earth. These grains represent the initial minerals in our solar system and were formed over 4.5 billion years ago. He has also worked on the following subjects:
Interactions between bacteria and minerals.
Solid to glass transition under pressure.
Experimental techniques: laser-heated diamond anvil cell, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction with synchrotron facilities, electron microscopy.
Philippe Gillet is also active in science and education management. He was the Director of the CNRS Institut National des Sciences de lUnivers (France), the President of the French synchrotron facility SOLEIL and of the French National Research Agency (2007), and the Director of Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon. Before joining EPFL he was the Chief of Staff of the French Minister of Higher Education and Research.
Selected publications:
Ferroir, T., L. Dubrovinsky, A. El Goresy, A. Simionovici, T. Nakamura, and P. Gillet (2010), Carbon polymorphism in shocked meteorites: Evidence for new natural ultrahard phases, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 290(1-2), 150-154.
Barrat J.A., Bohn M., Gillet Ph., Yamaguchi A. (2009) Evidence for K-rich terranes on Vesta from impact spherules. Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 44, 359374.
Brownlee D, Tsou P, Aleon J, et al. (2006) Comet 81P/Wild 2 under a microscope. Science, 314, 1711-1716.
Beck P., Gillet Ph., El Goresy A., and Mostefaoui S. (2005) Timescales of shock processes in chondrites and Martian meteorites. Nature 435, 1071-1074.
Blase X., Gillet Ph., San Miguel A. and Mélinon P. (2004) Exceptional ideal strength of carbon clathrates. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 215505-215509.
Gillet Ph. (2002) Application of vibrational spectroscopy to geology. In Handbook of vibrational spectroscopy, Vol. 4 (ed. J. M. Chalmers and P. R. Griffiths), pp. 1-23. John Wiley & Sons.
Gillet Ph., Chen C., Dubrovinsky L., and El Goresy A. (2000) Natural NaAlSi3O8 -hollandite in the shocked Sixiangkou meteorite. Science 287, 1633-1636.
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.
Michel RappazAfter a PhD in solid state physics (1978) at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and a post-doc at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Michel Rappaz joined the Institute of Materials of EPFL in 1981. After two years in an engineering company, he came back to EPFL in 1984 where he was nominated Adjunct Professor in 1990 and Full Professor in 2003. He retired from EPFL in 2015 and is now Emeritus Professor and independent consultant for several industries and research centres.
His main interests are in phase transformations and solidification, in particular the coupling of macroscopic aspects of heat and mass transfer with microscopic aspects of microstructure and defect formation. Among his diverse achievements, one can mention in particular the development of cellular automata for grain structure predictions and of granular models for hot tearing formation in castings, the coupling of Finite Element method with microscopic models of nucleation and growth, the application of the phase field method to the understanding of various microstructures, the discovery of quasicrystal mediated-nucleation in alloys, and many other studies both fundamental at the microstructure-defect level and more applied at the level of processes.
Some of the software developments have been commercialized by a spin-off company founded by his group in 1991 (Calcom SA), now part of the French company ESI. Michel Rappaz initiated in 1992 an annual postgraduate course on solidification which has been attended by more than 900 participants from all over the world. He is presently collaborating closely with another spin-off company started from his group, Novamet SàrL.
Michel Rappaz has received several awards, in particular the Mathewson co-author award (1994) and author award (1997) of the American Mineral, Metals and Materials Society (TMS), the Koerber foundation award jointly with Profs Y. Bréchet and M. Asbby (1996), the Sainte-Claire Deville Medal (1996) and the Grand Medal (2011) from the French Materials Society, the Bruce Chalmers Award of TMS (2002), the Mc Donald Memorial Lecture award of Canada (2005), the FEMS European Materials Gold Medal (2013) and the Brimacombe Prize of TMS (2015). He is a highly-cited author of ISI, a fellow of ASM, IOP and TMS, and has co-authored more than 200 publications and two books.
Véronique MichaudBackground:
1994 Habilitation à diriger des recherches ( INPG, France)
1991 PhD in Materials Engineering ( MIT, USA)
1987 Ingénieur Civil des Mines ( Ecole des Mines de Paris, France)
Activities:
Since January 2018: Associate Dean of Engineering, in charge of Education
June 2012-Dec.2017: Head of the Materials Science and Engineering Section
Since April 2017: Associate Professor at EPFL
2009-2017 : Professeur Titulaire at EPFL
1997-2009: Researcher at EPFL
1994-1997 : Chef de Travaux au laboratoire MSS-MAT, Ecole Centrale Paris (France)
1991-1994 : Post-doctoral research associate, MIT (USA)
Author of about 300 publications of which 140 in peer-reviewed journals
Marianne LiebiMarianne Liebi is Tenure-Track Assistant Professor at EPF Lausanne and head of the Laboratory for X-ray characterization of materials (cam-X) and the group “
Structure and Mechanics of Advanced Materials
” at PSI. She has been appointed in 2021 at EPFL where she is part of the Institute of Materials within the School of Engineering. Marianne Liebi studied Food Science at ETH Zurich where she also obtained her PhD in 2013 in the Laboratory of Food Process Engineering lead by Prof. Erich J. Windhab. Within this project started using small-angle neutron scattering at PSI for the characterization of soft-matter, namely of magnetic alignable self-assembly structures. As a Postdoc in the coherent X-ray scattering group at the Swiss Light Source she worked from 2013-2016 on method development in SAXS tensor tomography. In 2016 she moved to Sweden where after a short period at the NanoMAX beamline, MAXIV Laboratory, Lund she started her own research group in 2017 as Assistant Professor at the Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, and became Docent in Physics in spring 2020. She kept her affiliation at Chalmers University of Technology, where still part of her group is located (
Liebi research group
) when moving back to Switzerland in 2020 where she was Scientific Group Leader in the Center for X-ray Analytics at Empa, St.Gallen, before starting the joint position between EPFL and PSI in November 2021.
