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).
Caroline VandevyverCaroline Vandevyver received her degree in biochemistry in 1985 from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium and her Ph.D. degree in biotechnology at the same university in 1989. She joined the Biomedical Research Institute "Dr. L- Willems Instituut" in Hasselt, Belgium, in 1989. Subsequently, she has worked there on T cell mediated autoimmune diseases (Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis), genetic association and linkage studies in multifactorial diseases, mutation analysis of genetic disorders (Phenylketonuria, alpha 1 anti-trypsine deficiency, congenital adrenal hyperplasia) and the development of active and passive immune therapies for cancer. She joined EPFL in 2000 at the Laboratory of Chemical Biotechnology headed by Prof. Ruth Freitag, where she was responsible for the cell culture lab and the (recombinant) protein purification and characterization. She joined the Laboratory of Lanthanide Supramolecular Chemistry (LCSL) in May 2006, where she was responsible for the live cell imaging project with Lanthanide complexes. In 2005, she joined the Office of the Research Commission. Her duties there were the management of national and international fellowship programs, the management of local research awards and the promotion of research performed at EPFL. In August 2013, she was nominated coordinator of the International Funding, one of the pillars of the Research Office at EPFL. Since January 2017, she is the Head of EPFL's Research Office.
