Stefano MischlerStefano Mischler obtained the diploma in materials science in 1983 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETHZ in Zurich. He accomplished his PhD thesis in the field of surface analysis and corrosion at the Materials department of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL in Lausanne in 1988. In the years 1989-1990 he held a postdoctoral position at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Establishment in Harwell (Oxfordshire) where he developed novel quantification procedures for Auger Electron Spectroscopy and high lateral resolution surface analytical methods for fiber reinforced ceramics. In 1991 he joined the newly created Tribology group at the Laboratory for Metallurgical Chemistry of the EPFL where he developed research activities in the field of wear-corrosion interactions (tribocorrosion) and of tribological coatings. He is currently head of the tribology group and is developing a reserach and training activity devoted to modern aspects of tribology and surface science and technology, including surface chemical effects in tribology, biotribology and biocorrosion, tribology in microfabrication processes and wear protection methods. In 2006 he spent a sabbatical leave of 3 months at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Institute of Biomaterials.
Jürg Alexander SchiffmannAfter obtaining his diploma in mechanical engineering from EPFL in 1999 he co-founded a start-up company dedicated to the design of gas bearing supported rotors. In 2005 he joined Fischer Engineering Solutions where he led the development of small-scale, gas bearing supported high-speed turbomachinery for fuel cell air supplies and for domestic scale heat pumps. In parallel he worked on his PhD, which he obtained from EPFL in 2008 and for which he was awarded the SwissElectric Research Award. He then joined the Gas Turbine Lab at MIT as a postdoctoral associate where he worked on foil bearings and on the experimental investigation of radial diffusers. In 2013 he was nominated assistant professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne where he founds the Laboratory for Applied Mechanical Design. His current research interest are in gas lubricated bearings, in aerodynamics of small-scale compressors and turbines and in automated design and optimization methodologies.
Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida ReisPedro M. Reis is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, where he is the Director of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. Prof. Reis received a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Manchester, UK (1999), a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Mathematics (Part III Maths) from St. John’s College and DAMTP, University of Cambridge (2000), and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Manchester (2004). He was a postdoc at the City College of New York (2004-2005) and at the CNRS/ESPCI in Paris (2005-2007). He joined MIT in 2007 as an Instructor in Applied Mathematics. In 2010 he moved to MIT’s School of Engineering, with dual appointments in Mechanical Engineering and Civil & Environmental Engineering, first as the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor and, since the summer of 2014 as Gilbert W. Winslow Associate Professor. In October 2013, the Popular Science magazine named Prof. Reis to its 2013 “Brilliant 10” list of young stars in Science and Technology. He has received the 2014 CAREER Award (NSF), the 2016 Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award (Applied Mechanics Division of the ASME), the 2016 GSOFT Early Career Award for Soft Matter Research (APS), he is a Fellow of the APS, and he is the 2021 President of the Society of Engineering Science (SES).
