David Andrew BarryResearch InterestsSubsurface hydrology, constructed wetlands, ecological engineering, in particular contaminant transport and remediation of soil and groundwater; more generally, models of hydrological and vadose zone processes; application of mathematical methods to hydrological processes; coastal zone sediment transport, aquifer-coastal ocean interactions; hydrodynamics and modelling of lakes.
Lukas KühnLukas Kühn graduated in biochemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich. He received his PhD in 1979 for a thesis with Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl at the University of Lausanne. After postdoctoral work in Lausanne and with Frank Ruddle at Yale University, USA, he became group leader at ISREC in 1984, was promoted senior scientist in 1988 and EPFL Adjunct Professor (professeur titulaire) in June 2008.
Anna Carratala RipollesDuring my PhD, I mainly focused on characterizing the effect of environmental factors (namely temperature and sunlight) and disinfectants on the stability of human viral pathogens as contaminants of aquatic environments. In addition,I developed a novel source tracking tool to identify avian fecal contamination in environmental samples. Thanks to a research fellowship given by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, I also had the opportunity to explore the diversity of marine viruses in Mediterranean coastal waters by genetic fingerprinting and by next generation sequencing. Later on, I became interested in the long-term effect of environmental stressors on virus communities, so I joined the LCE as a postdoc to investigate the adaptation of enteroviruses to ultraviolet radiation. For 4 years, I worked on developing UV-resistant viruses and characterizing their acquired phenotypic and genetic properties by combining directed evolution experiments, deep sequencing and population genetics. Out of the lab, I am passionate about nature, traveling and scuba diving.