Juan Carlos FarahJuan Carlos Farah received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard University, completed studies in Computer Science at Stanford University, and a Master of Science in Computing at Imperial College London. Since 2017, Juan Carlos has worked as a researcher and software engineer at the Interaction Systems Group (REACT) of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He is the technical lead for the Graasp Ecosystem, a suite of native and web applications that support digital education activities and are the core technology behind the Horizon 2020 Next-Lab and GO-GA European Innovation Action Projects. As a part of these projects, Juan Carlos conducted research on privacy-preserving systems for technology-enhanced learning. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Robotics and Intelligent Systems at EPFL, focusing on human-computer interaction and the perception of anthropomorphic traits in intelligent conversational agents. As part of his teaching duties, he gives a yearly lecture on trust, privacy and reputation frameworks for social media platforms.
Auke IjspeertAuke Ijspeert is a full professor at the EPFL, and head of the Biorobotics Laboratory (BioRob). He has a B.Sc./M.Sc. in physics from the EPFL (1995), and a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh (1999). He carried out postdocs at IDSIA and EPFL, and at the University of Southern California (USC). He then became a research assistant professor at USC, and an external collaborator at ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research institute) in Japan. In 2002, he came back to the EPFL as an SNF assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in October 2009 and to full professor in April 2016. His primary affiliation is with the Institute of Bioengineering, and secondary affiliation with the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. His research interests are at the intersection between robotics, computational neuroscience, nonlinear dynamical systems, and machine learning. He is interested in using numerical simulations and robots to get a better understanding of sensorimotor coordination in animals, and in using inspiration from biology to design novel types of robots and adaptive controllers. (see for instance Ijspeert et al Science 2007, Ijspeert Science 2014, and Nyakatura et al Nature 2019). He is also investigating how to assist people with limited mobility using exoskeletons and assistive furniture. He is regularly invited to give talks on these topics (e.g. TED talk given at TED Global Geneva, Dec 8 2015). With his colleagues, he has received paper awards at ICRA2002, CLAWAR2005, IEEE Humanoids 2007, IEEE ROMAN 2014, CLAWAR 2015, SAB2018, and CLAWAR 2019. He is an IEEE Fellow, member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science magazine, and associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics and for the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics. He has acted as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (2009-2013) and for Soft Robotics (2018-2021). He was a guest editor for the Proceedings of IEEE, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Autonomous Robots, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, and Biological Cybernetics. He has been the organizer of 7 international conferences (BioADIT2004, SAB2004, AMAM2005, BioADIT2006, LATSIS2006, SSRR2016, AMAM2019), and a program committee member of over 50 conferences.
Denis GilletDenis Gillet received the Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in 1988, and the Ph.D. degree in Information Systems also from the EPFL in 1995. During 1992 he was appointed as Research Fellow at the Information Systems Laboratory of Stanford University in the United States. He is currently Maître d'enseignement et de recherche at the EPFL School of Engineering, where he leads the React research group. His current research interests include Technologies Enhanced Learning (TEL), Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Human Devices Interaction (HDI) and Optimal Coordination of Complex and Distributed Systems. Denis Gillet is affiliated at EPFL with the Center for Intelligent Systems and the Center for Digital Education.
Daniel ThalmannProf. Daniel Thalmann is Honorary Professor at EPFL and Director of Research development at MIRALab Sarl. He has been Visiting Professor at The Institute for Media Innovation (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) from 2009 to 2017. He is a pioneer in research on Virtual Humans. His current research interests include Real-time Virtual Humans in Virtual Reality, crowd simulation, and 3D Interaction. Daniel Thalmann has been the Founder of The Virtual Reality Lab (VRlab) at EPFL, Switzerland, Professor at The University of Montreal and Visiting Professor/ Researcher at CERN, University of Nebraska, University of Tokyo, and National University of Singapore. Until October 2010, he was the President of the Swiss Association of Research in Information Technology and one Director of the European Research Consortium in Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM). He is coeditor-in-chief of the Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, and member of the editorial board of 6 other journals. Daniel Thalmann was member of numerous Program Committees, Program Chair and CoChair of several conferences including IEEE VR, ACM VRST, and ACM VRCAI. Daniel Thalmann has published more than 500 papers in Graphics, Animation, and Virtual Reality. He is coeditor of 30 books, and coauthor of several books including 'Crowd Simulation' (second edition 2012) and 'Stepping Into Virtual Reality' (2007), published by Springer. He received his PhD in Computer Science in 1977 from the University of Geneva and an Honorary Doctorate (Honoris Causa) from University Paul- Sabatier in Toulouse, France, in 2003. He also received the Eurographics Distinguished Career Award in 2010 and the 2012 Canadian Human Computer Communications Society Achievement Award. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Thalmann Roland LongchampRoland Longchamp is Professor of Automatic Control and Director of the Automatic Control Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). He received his Diploma in Electrical Engineering and his Ph.D. degree both from EPFL. He was appointed as Postdoctoral Fellow, first at the Information Systems Laboratory, Stanford University, and then at the Decision and Control Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working in the areas of nonlinear systems, estimation theory and predictive control. He was with the Asea Brown Boveri Company in Turgi, Switzerland, involved in the field of on-line control of large power systems. He joined EPFL in 1983, where his current research interests include control of linear systems, adaptive control, robust control, with applications to mechatronic systems. He served as Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department in 1991-1993 and as Director of the Automatic Control Laboratory for the periods 1986-1993 and 1997-2003. He is Editor of the EPFL Press Mechanical Engineering Series since 1996.
Pierre DillenbourgAncien instituteur primaire, Pierre Dillenbourg obtient un master en Sciences de lEducation (Université de Mons, Belgique). Dans son projet de master en 1986, il est l'un des premiers au monde à appliquer les méthodes de 'machine learning' à l'éducation, afin de développer un 'self-improving teaching system'. Ceci lui permettra de débuter une thèse de doctorat en informatique à l'Université de Lancaster (UK) dans le domaine des applications éducatives de lintelligence artificielle. Il a été Maître dEnseignement et de Recherche à lUniversité de Genève. Il rejoint l'EPFL en 2012, où Il fut le directeur du Centre de Recherche sur l'Apprentissage, la formation et ses technologies(CRAFT), puis académique du Centre pour l'Education à l'Ere Digitale (CEDE) qui met en oeuvre la stratégie MOOC de l'EPFL (plus de 2 millions d'inscriptions). Il est actuellement professeur ordinaire en technologies de formation aux sein de la faculté Informatique et Communications et dirige laboratoire d'ergonomie éducative (CHILI). Depuis 2006, il a aussi été le directeur de DUAL-T, la 'leading house' dédiée aux technologies pour les systèmes de formation professionnelle duale. Il a fondé plusieurs start-ups dans l'éducation et rejoint plusieurs conseils d'administration. En 2017, Il a créé avec des collègues le 'Swiss EdTech Collider', un incubateur qui rassemble 80 start-ups dans le domaine des technologies éducatives. En 2018, ils ont lancé LEARN, le centre EPFL pour les sciences de l'apprentissage, lequel regroupe les initiatives locales en innovation éducative. Pierre est un 'inaugural fellow of the International Society of Learning Sciences'. Il est actuellement le Vice-Président Associé pour l'Education à l'EPFL.
Karl AbererCo-Founder of LinkAlong Sarl, 2017.Vice-president EPFL for Information Systems, 2012 –2016.Director of the Swiss National Centre for Mobile Information and Communication Systems NCCR MICS (mics.ch), 2005 -2012.Member of the Swiss Research and Technology Council SWTR, consulting the Swiss Federal government, 2004 - 2011.
