Kathryn Hess BellwaldKathryn Hess Bellwald received her PhD from MIT in 1989 and held positions at the universities of Stockholm, Nice, and Toronto before moving to the EPFL.Her research focuses on algebraic topology and its applications, primarily in the life sciences, but also in materials science. She has published extensively on topics in pure algebraic topology including homotopy theory, operad theory, and algebraic K-theory. On the applied side, she has elaborated methods based on topological data analysis for high-throughput screening of nanoporous crystalline materials, classification and synthesis of neuron morphologies, and classification of neuronal network dynamics. She has also developed and applied innovative topological approaches to network theory, leading to a powerful, parameter-free mathematical framework relating the activity of a neural network to its underlying structure, both locally and globally.In 2016 she was elected to Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences and was named a fellow of the American Mathematical Society and a distinguished speaker of the European Mathematical Society in 2017. In 2021 she gave an invited Public Lecture at the European Congress of Mathematicians. She has won several teaching prizes at EPFL, including the Crédit Suisse teaching prize and the Polysphère d’Or.
Gavin Jay SealAfter completing my studies at the University of Geneva, and obtaining a PhD from the Free University of Brussels, I went on to complete postdocs at York University in Toronto and McGill University in Montreal. Following a on-year position as Temporary Assistant Professor at Georgia Southern University in the United States, I integrated Kathryn Hess research group at the EPFL in 2009 thanks to a Marie-Curie International Reintegration Grant. I taught the Geometry and Mathematics courses to the architects from 2012 to 2014, and since 2012 I have been teaching mathematics for the talented youth at the Euler course.
