Philippe ThalmannOriginaire de Malters (LU), Philippe Thalmann est né à Lausanne en 1963. Il est licencié en économie politique de l'Université de Lausanne en 1984, où il a aussi obtenu le diplôme postgrade dans la même branche en 1986. M. Thalmann est entré dans le programme doctoral en économie de l'Université Harvard (Cambridge, E.-U.) en 1986 et l'a achevé avec le doctorat (Ph.D.) en 1990. De retour en Suisse, il est nommé maître-assistant à l'Université de Genève pour y enseigner l'économie et les finances publiques, puis professeur assistant à l'Université de Lausanne en 1993, pour y enseigner l'économétrie appliquée et l'économie nationale. En 1994, M. Thalmann est nommé professeur extraordinaire à l'EPFL (aujourd'hui professeur associé). Lors de la réorganisation de l'EPFL en 2000, il réoriente sa chaire de l'économie de la construction vers l'économie de l'environnement naturel et construit.
John BotsisJohn (Ioannis) Botsis obtained his diplôme in civil engineering at the University of Patras, Greece in 1979. He continued his education at Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland Ohio/USA, where he received his MS and Ph.D. in 1984. After two years at the research center for national defense in Athens he was nominated assistant professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago, associate in 1991 and full professor in 1995. In 1996, he was nominated professor of solids and structural mechanics at the EPFL. At EPFL he teaches mechanics of structures and mechanics of continuous media´ at the bachelors level and Fracture mechanics at the masters and doctoral levels. His research covers the mechanics of solids and structures, fracture mechanics and micromechanics of polymers, metals and their composites as well as biomechanics. He is also actively involved in full-filed optical methods for surface strain measurements as well as internal strain measurements using fiber Bragg grating sensors, aimed at characterizing micromechanics of fracture, residual strains and strain distribution in composite laminates for structural monitoring. Funding for his research comes from the Swiss National Science Foundation, State Secretariat for Education and Research and Swiss industry. He retired on February 28, 2020.
Pierre-André FarinePierre-André Farine received the Doctoral and Engineering Degrees in Microtechnology from University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, respectively in 1984 and 1978, and the Engineering in Microtechnology from ETS Le Locle in 1974.
He was working 17 years for the Swiss watch industries (Swatch Group), including developments for high-tech products, such as pager watches, watches including integrated sensors such as pressure, compass, altimeter and temperature sensors for Tissot. He was also involved in prototypes developments for watches including GPS and cellular GSM phones.
Since 8 years, he is Professor in Electronics and Signal Processing at the Institute of Microtechnology IMT, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Full professor at EPFL since January 1st, 2009, he works in the field of low-power integrated products for portable devices, including microelectronics for wireless telecommunications, UWB and GNSS systems. He is Head of the Electronics and Signal Processing Laboratory ESPLAB of the EPFL IMT-NE. His laboratory works also for video and audio compression algorithms and their implementation in low power integrated circuits.