Dominique BonvinDominique Bonvin is Professor and Director of the Automatic Control Laboratory of EPFL. He received his Diploma in Chemical Engineering from ETH Zürich, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He worked in the field of process control for the Sandoz Corporation in Basel and with the Systems Engineering Group of ETH Zürich. He joined the EPFL in 1989, where his current research interests include modeling, control and optimization of dynamic systems. He served as Director of the Automatic Control Laboratory for the periods 1993-97, 2003-2007 and again since 2012, Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department in 1995-97 and Dean of Bachelor and Master Studies at EPFL for the period 2004-2011.
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 Thierry MeyerOriginaire de Genève, né en 1961, Thierry Meyer reçoit en 1986 son diplôme (MSC) dingénieur chimiste de lEcole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Il reçoit en 1989 son doctorat (PhD) à EPFL pour sa thèse sur le micromélange dans des milieux fortement visqueux. Il rejoint l'institut du génie chimique de 1989 jusqu'à 1993 en tant que scientifique senior dans le domaine des réactions de polymérisation. Il entre, en 1994, à la division " Pigments " de Ciba-Geigy SA, où il travaille au développement et à la mise en production de plusieurs pigments de hautes performances. Il assume la fonction de chef de projets pour l'introduction de nouveaux pigments en fabrication. En 1997, il est nommé chef de fabrication pour la production de la division pigments de Ciba Spécialités Chimiques SA à Monthey. Il est pendant cette même période nommé chargé de cours à l'EPFL. Retournant à l'institut du génie chimique d'EPFL à Lausanne vers la fin de 1998, il a été nommé « d'enseignement de maître et de recherche » (MER) pour mener un nouveau groupe de recherche dans le domaine des polymères et les fluides supercritiques, et enseigner aux chimistes, ingénieurs chimistes et en sciences des matériaux, les disciplines telles que le développement de procédés, l'introduction au génie chimique, le chimie organique et des polymères au programme de bachelor et master. En 2005 il assume la responsabilité du service de Sécurité et Santé au Travail de la faculté des sciences de base en plus de ses activités de recherches traitant de la gestion des risques (risk management) et des fluides supercritiques. Il enseigne actuellement l'introduction au génie chimique au niveau bachelor, le risk management au niveau master et des cours de formation continue dans le domaine de la sécurité (safety) et de la gestion des risques (engineering risk management). Il agit également comme consultant et expert en matière de risk management et génie chimique auprès du tribunal de l'ICC (chambre de commerce internationale) du World Business Organization, auprès de plusieurs bureaux d'études et de consultants ainsi quauprès dindustries. Thierry Meyer est actuellement membre de plusieurs associations internationales de la fédération Européenne du génie chimique et de la société chimique Américaine et American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Il a été élu Président de la European Working Party on Polymer Reaction Engineering de 2001 jusqu'à 2006. Il est actuellement le représentant académique Suisse dans la European Working Party on Loss Prevention and Safety Promotion et dans la European Working Party on Education. Il est membre de plusieurs editorial boards: Chemical Engineering Research and Design, Macromolecular Reaction Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Technology, Journal of Chemical Health and Safety.
Jürgen BruggerI am a Professor of Microengineering and co-affiliated to Materials Science. Before joining EPFL I was at the MESA Research Institute of Nanotechnology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, and at the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory, in Tokyo, Japan. I received a Master in Physical-Electronics and a PhD degree from Neuchâtel University, Switzerland. Research in my laboratory focuses on various aspects of MEMS and Nanotechnology. My group contributes to the field at the fundamental level as well as in technological development, as demonstrated by the start-ups that spun off from the lab. In our research, key competences are in micro/nanofabrication, additive micro-manufacturing, new materials for MEMS, increasingly for wearable and biomedical applications. Together with my students and colleagues we published over 200 peer-refereed papers and I had the pleasure to supervise over 25 PhD students. Former students and postdocs have been successful in receiving awards and starting their own scientific careers. I am honoured for the appointment in 2016 as Fellow of the IEEE “For contributions to micro and nano manufacturing technology”. In 2017 my lab was awarded an ERC AdvG in the field of advanced micro-manufacturing.
Esther AmstadEsther Amstad studied material science at ETH in Zurich. She also carried out her PhD thesis at the same University under the supervision of Prof. Marcus Textor; for her thesis, she worked on the surface modification and steric stabilization of oxide nanoparticles. As a postdoctoral fellow, she joined the experimental condensed soft matter group of David A. Weitz at Harvard University where she used droplet based microfluidics to assemble different types of functional micro- and nanomaterials. In addition, she developped new microfluidic devices that enable the production of very small, airborne drops as well as devices that produce highly monodisperse emulsion drops at a very high throughput. In June 2014, Esther joined the material science department (IMX) of EPFL where she is leading the Soft Materials Laboratory (SMAL).
