Mohammad Khaja NazeeruddinDr. Md. K. Nazeeruddin received M.Sc. and Ph. D. in inorganic chemistry from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. He joined as a Lecturer in Deccan College of Engineering and Technology, Osmania University in 1986, and subsequently, moved to Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar, as a Research Associate. He was awarded the Government of Indias fellowship in 1987 for study abroad. After one year postdoctoral stay with Prof. Graetzel at Swiss federal institute of technology Lausanne (E P F L), he joined the same institute as a Senior Scientist. His current research focuses on Dye-sensitized solar cells, Hydrogen production, Light-emitting diodes and Chemical sensors. He has published more than 380 peer-reviewed papers, ten book chapters, and inventor of 40 patents. The high impact of his work has been recognized with invitations to speak at over 80 international conferences, including the MRS Fall (USA, 2006) and Spring 2011 Meetings, GORDON conference (2014), and has been nominated to the OLLA International Scientific Advisory Board. He appeared in the ISI listing of most cited chemists, and has more than 33'500 citations with an h-index of 89. He is teaching "Functional Materials" course at EPFL, and Korea University; directing, and managing several industrial, national, and European Union projects on Hydrogen energy, Photovoltaics (DSC), and Organic Light Emitting Diodes. He was awarded EPFL Excellence prize in 1998 and 2006, Brazilian FAPESP Fellowship in 1999, Japanese Government Science & Technology Agency Fellowship, in 1998, Government of India National Fellowship in 1987-1988. Recently he has been appointed as World Class University (WCU) professor by the Korea University, Jochiwon, Korea (http://dses.korea.ac.kr/eng/sub01_06_2.htm) and Adjunct Professor by the King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. André MerbachOriginaire de Pully (Vaud), André E. Merbach est né en 1940. Il étudie à l'Ecole Polytechnique de l'Université de Lausanne (Prix Pelet et de l'A3E2PL) et obtient son diplôme d'ingénieur chimiste en 1962 avec un travail de recherche en chimie organique. En 1964, l'Université de Lausanne lui confère le doctorat ès sciences avec félicitations du jury pour ses travaux sur les systèmes quaternaires de solubilité avec formation de cristaux mixtes. Il effectue ensuite un stage postdoctoral au Lawrence Radiation Laboratory de l'Université de Californie à Berkeley, où il étudie la ionisation d'électrolytes forts par RMN.
En 1965, de retour à l'Institut de chimie minérale et analytique de l'UNIL, on lui demande de développer une recherche et de créer un enseignement en chimie de coordination. En 1971 il y est nommé professeur assistant.
En 1973, la Société Suisse de Chimie lui attribue le Prix et la Médaille Werner pour ses travaux sur la structure, la stabilité et la dynamique d'adduits d'halogénures métalliques par RMN. Cette même année, l'UNIL le nomme professeur de chimie minérale et analytique.
Il a été membre de la division mathématiques, des sciences naturelles et de l'ingénieur du Fonds national de la recherche scientifique (1985-1996). Il représente la Suisse au Comité Technique COST Chimie (Coopération Européenne dans le domaine scientifique et technique: 35 pays, 1000 groupes de recherche en chimie) et a présidé ce Comité de 1998 à 2000. Il a présidé le Comité de gestion européen pour l'Action COST D6 pour les "procédés et réactions chimiques dans des conditions extrêmes ou non classiques" (1992-1997).
Il a organisé à Lausanne, en 1992, la XXIXe Conférence Internationale de Chimie de Coordination (ICCC). L'Université Lajos Kossuth, de Debrecen (Hongrie), lui a conféré, en 1993, le doctorat honoris causa pour ses études par RMN sous haute pression des mécanismes réactionnels en chimie de coordination. Il a été appelé à la présidence de la Société Suisse de Chimie (2001-2004). L'Université de Genève lui a délivré un doctorat honoris causa en 2003.
Michael GraetzelProfessor of Physical Chemistry at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Michael Graetzel, PhD, directs there the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces. He pioneered research on energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic systems and their use to generate electricity and fuels from sunlight. He invented mesoscopic injection solar cells, one key embodiment of which is the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC). DSCs are meanwhile commercially produced at the multi-MW-scale and created a number of new applications in particular as lightweight power supplies for portable electronic devices and in building integrated photovoltaics. They engendered perovskite solar cells (PSCs) which turned into the most exciting break-through in the history of photovoltaics. He received a number of prestigious awards, of which the most recent ones include the RusNANO Prize, the Zewail Prize in Molecular Science, the Global Energy Prize, the Millennium Technology Grand Prize, the Marcel Benoist Prize, the King Faisal International Science Prize, the Einstein World Award of Science and the Balzan Prize. He is a Fellow of several learned societies and holds eleven honorary doctor’s degrees from European and Asian Universities. His over 1500 publications have received some 220’000 citations with an h-factor of 218 (SI-Web of Science) demonstrating the strong impact of his scientific work.
Xile HuXile Hu was born in 1978 in Putian, southeastern China. He entered the Peking University in Beijing in 1996. Besides learning too little chemistry, his biggest regret in the college was not able to correct his southern accent in Mandarin. After graduated from PKU, he went to the United States and began his doctoral studies at the University of California, San Diego. In December 2004, he finished with a Ph.D. in chemistry and some fond memories of the beautiful city of San Diego. He then moved to the Los Angeles area and become a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology. There he enjoyed numerous stimulating scientific (and other) discussions with friends and colleagues. He also made plenty of friends outside the campus and was a frequent in many local Chinese restaurants. In 2007, after two pleasant visits to Switzerland, he decided to move across the continent one more time and join the faculty of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He now directs the Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Catalysis and is interested in developing chemistry for synthesis, energy and sustainability.
