25th International Conference on Noise and Fluctuations – ICNF 2019
The International Conference on Fluctuation Phenomena started in 1968 and moved all over the world. For the first time the conference will take place in Switzerland: the 25th edition (ICNF 2019) will be held at EPFL Microcity in Neuchâtel, from June 18 to June 21, 2019.
The International Conference on Noise and Fluctuations (ICNF) is a biennial event that brings together researchers interested in theoretical and experimental aspects of fluctuations across a wide spectrum of scientific and technological fields.
Read more
NMC 2019 - STI Workshop on Nanomechanical Sensors
Nanomechanics was born around 35 years ago with the invention of the STM and AFM. It was in the mid-90s when the first nanoelectromechanical devices were fabricated. Since then, nanomechanical systems have been slowly gaining track in the research community and now have become very important in many different applications. The nanomechanical sensors workshop exists since 2003 and has been organized every year gathering the most prominent figures in the nanomechanical sensing community. In the 2019 edition we want to focus our workshop in two of the most promising fields: quantum and bio-sensing. We are putting together an exciting program with 8 keynote speakers and more than 10 invited speakers of the top international tier. We expect to attract around 150-200 people from all over the world. Very importantly, in our even we will put in contact two apparently very separate communities as are quantum and bio-sensing communities. The main objective during the workshop will be to explore the synergies between them. The School of Engineering of EPFL supports the organization of scientific workshops on the EPFL campus on topics of heightened interest at the forefront of research. These workshops attract highly visible and internationally recognizable speakers.
Read more
[ Registrations open for the Swiss-Iranian Research Workshop, 20 June 2019 ]
In May 2018, a Swiss delegation (representatives of SBFI, SNSF, universities and research institutions) visited Iran to intensify research cooperation between the two countries.
This year, an Iranian delegation is visiting Switzerland. As part of this visit, ZHAW, SERI’s leading house for bilateral research collaboration with South Asia and Iran, is organising a workshop in Winterthur on Thursday, 20 June 2019 (from 10.00-17.00), where researchers from Iran and Switzerland are to meet in order to get to know each other, exchange views on technical topics and develop joint research projects.
The workshop is open to researchers with permanent employment in Switzerland at any university, university of applied sciences, university of teachers education or any officially recognized research institute, and active in one of the following focus areas:
- Mental Health
- Non-communicable diseases
- Environmental Technologies
Please note: the number of registrations from Swiss researchers is limited to 10. We therefore recommend you to register as soon as possible by following the applicable link below:
- Registrations from researchers in the field of mental healthhttps://de.surveymonkey.com/r/mentheal
- Registrations of researchers from the field of non-communicable diseases: https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/noncommunicablediseases
- Registrations from researchers in the field of environmental technologies: https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/EnvironmentalTechnologies
Participation is free of cost.
Contact:
Leading House South Asia and Iran
ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, CH-8401 Winterthur, Switzerland
leadinghouse@zhaw.ch
Read more
Helen: Maliciously Secure Coopetitive Learning for Linear Models
Abstract
Many organizations wish to collaboratively train machine learning models on their combined datasets for a common benefit (e.g., better medical research, or fraud detection). However, they often cannot share their plaintext datasets due to privacy concerns and/or business competition. In this talk, I will present Helen, a system that allows multiple parties to train a linear model without revealing their data, a setting we call coopetitive learning. Compared to prior secure training systems, Helen protects against a much stronger adversary who is malicious and can compromise m − 1 out of m parties. Our evaluation shows that Helen can achieve up to five orders of magnitude of performance improvement when compared to training using an existing state-of-the-art secure multi-party computation framework.
Joint work with Wenting Zheng, Joey Gonzalez and Ion Stoica.
Biography
Raluca Ada Popa is an assistant professor of computer science at UC Berkeley working in computer security, systems, and applied cryptography. She is a co-founder and co-director of the RISELab at UC Berkeley, as well as a co-founder and CTO of a cybersecurity startup called PreVeil. Raluca has received her PhD in computer science as well as her Masters and two BS degrees, in computer science and in mathematics, from MIT. She is the recipient of a Sloan Foundation Fellowship award, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship, Hellman Faculty Award, an Intel Early Career Faculty Honor award, George M. Sprowls Award for best MIT CS doctoral thesis, and a Johnson award for best CS Masters of Engineering thesis from MIT.
Read more
Technologie et vie intérieure – Conférence de Laurence Freeman
Mondialement connu, le père Freeman enseigne la méditation selon une tradition mystique chrétienne et la considère comme le chemin sur lequel diverses confessions et cultures se rencontrent pour redécouvrir leur fondement commun et le sens de leur mission. Depuis le nouveau Centre pour la Paix de Bonnevaux, en France, il engage un dialogue avec le monde séculier à partir d’un rythme quotidien de silence et de service
La technologie, la vitesse et les moyens de communication de masse ont apporté de nombreux bienfaits au monde, mais à un coût tragique. Nous sommes en train de perdre les valeurs essentielles de l’humanité, comme le sens de la communauté, l’émerveillement face à la nature, la paix de l’esprit et la transcendance. Nous ne pouvons pas revenir en arrière et pourtant, nous devons changer de direction.
Un proverbe chinois dit : « Si vous continuez à aller dans la direction que vous avez prise, vous allez arriver au lieu où vous vous dirigez. » Comment repenser la direction vers laquelle nous nous dirigeons et choisir un ailleurs meilleur? Comment faire de la technologie notre serviteur et non un maître? Comment placer les relations avant les possessions? Comment voir l’engagement comme un lieu d’épanouissement?
La méditation est une sagesse universelle. Plus qu’une technique anti-stress, elle est un chemin pour retrouver et vivre la vie intérieure dont l’humanité dépend. Elle ne résout pas tous les problèmes du monde en un instant, mais elle transforme la manière de voir ces problèmes, elle ravive notre capacité à aimer et illumine notre compréhension.
La session à l’EPFL comprendra une introduction à la méditation ainsi qu’un temps de méditation. Elle sera donnée en anglais et traduite en français.
Read more
Dielectrophoresis for selective Bioparticle Manipulation in Sample Preparation and Nanomanufacturing
Waves & Imaging - Commonalities/complementarities of optical and ultrasound imaging
Anne Sentenac - Institut Fresnel - Marseille 17:00 - Reflection Matrix Approaches for Imaging: From Ultrasound to Optics
Mathias Fink - ESPCI Paris
Imaging at EPFL Seminar
Read more
TRABIT Summer School 2019
In the context of the European ITN Translational Brain Imaging Network (TRABIT) we organise a Computational Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Summer School at EPFL.
Our aim is to train young researchers in both a deep understanding of computational neuroimaging methods together with the clinical needs and constraints arising in the treatment of brain disorders.
Who can apply?
The school is open for PhD students in Switzerland. Selection of the students will be made on the basis of a CV and motivation letter. There are 15 open participation slots.
Venue
The school will take place on the EPFL campus in Lausanne. For more details visit the Program and Venue sections.
For more information: http://trabit2019.epfl.ch
Read more
Reducing latency in Internet Access Links
Excessive and unpredictable end-to-end latency is a major problem for today’s Internet performance, affecting a range of applications from real-time multimedia to web traffic. This is mainly attributed to the interaction between the TCP congestion control and the unmanaged large buffers deployed across the Internet. In this talk I will discuss transport and link layer solutions to solve the Internet’s latency problem on the access links. These solutions operate on the sender side, within the network or use signaling between the sender and the network based on Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN). In addition, I will present Alternative Backoff with ECN (ABE), a change in sender’s reaction to ECN signal that reduces latency without harming link utilization. Real-life experiments and simulations show that this goal is achieved while maintaining backward compatibility and being gradually deployable on the Internet. ABE has been standardized by the IETF as an “experimental” RFC (RFC 8511) and been incorporated into mainline FreeBSD kernel.
Read more
Prof. Tania Rinaldi Barkat: "White noise background improves tone discrimination by suppressing cortical tuning curves"
The brain faces the difficult task of maintaining a stable representation of key features of the outside world in noisy sensory surroundings. How does the sensory representation change with noise, and how does the brain make sense of it? We investigated the effect of background white noise (WN) on tuning properties of neurons in mouse A1 and its impact on discrimination performance in a go/nogo task. We found that WN suppresses activity of A1 neurons, which surprisingly increases the discriminability of tones spectrally close to each other. To confirm the involvement of A1, we optogenetically excited parvalbumin positive (PV+) neurons in A1 which had similar effects as WN on both tuning properties and frequency discrimination. A population model suggests that suppression of A1 tuning curves increases frequency selectivity and thereby improves discrimination. Our findings demonstrate that the cortical representation of pure tones adapts during noise to improve sensory acuity.
Read more
Research market of research commons?
The EPFL Open Science initiative invites you to this presentation by Tim Smith, Head of Collaboration, Devices and Applications Group at CERN
ABSTRACT
Are you allowing your research to become tradable goods? Don’t… Market forces lead down a path of greed not wisdom! To add to the common body of knowledge your research itself, not just a narrative, should be freely available for scrutiny, understanding and inspiration. In his presentation, Tim Smith will discuss tools and techniques to ensure this is possible in the data driven era, illustrating through examples of services built to facilitate the opening of research at CERN.
Speaker's Bio:
Tim Smith is Head of Collaboration, Devices and Applications Group at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. Tim is an Open Science advocate leading initiatives at CERN and in the wider science community. He drove the launch of CERN’s Open Data Portal to share Large Hadron Collider big data with the world, as well as the Higgs Boson webcast which shared its discovery live around the globe. He also instigated and nurtures Zenodo within the European Commission’s OpenAIRE project as an open data service for world-wide science. Tim came to CERN at the end of the 80s, obtained a PhD in Particle Physics and performed research at the LEP accelerator for 10 years. He then joined the CERN IT Department to lead teams innovating in computing farm management and physics data management.
Read more
The 12th International Symposium on Linear Drives for Industry Applications - LDIA2019
The 12th International Symposium on Linear Drives for Industry Applications (LDIA) will be held from July 1-3, 2019 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The goal of the symposium is to bring together researchers from both academia and industry, and to share research findings and discuss future developments in linear drive technology.
Important dates:
Early bird registration before May 1st 2019
Website:
ldia2019.epfl.ch
Read more
CMOS Microelectronics for DNA detection using Ion-Sensitive Field Effect Transistors
Imperial College London
Institute of Microengineering - Distinguished Lecture
Campus Lausanne SV 1717 (live)
Campus Microcity MC B0 302 (video)
Zoom Live Stream: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/983964754
Abstract: In the last decade, we have seen a convergence of microelectronics into the world of healthcare providing novel solutions for early detection, diagnosis and therapy of disease. This has been made possible due to the emergence of CMOS technology, allowing fabrication of advanced systems with complete integration of sensors, instrumentation and processing, enabling design of miniaturised medical devices which operate with low-power. This has been specifically beneficial for the application areas of DNA based diagnostics and full genome sequencing, where the implementation of chemical sensors known as Ion-Sensitive Field Effect Transistors (ISFETs) directly in CMOS has enabled the design of large-scale arrays of millions of sensors that can conduct in-parallel detection of DNA. Furthermore, the scaling of CMOS with Moore’s law and the integration capability with microfluidics has enabled commercial efforts to make full genome sequencing affordable and therefore deployable in hospitals and research labs.
In this talk, I present how my lab is advancing the areas of DNA detection and rapid diagnostics through the design of CMOS based Lab-on-Chip systems using ISFETs. I will first introduce the fundamentals and physical properties of DNA as a target molecule and how it can be detected using different modalities through the use of CMOS technology. I will then present methods of design of ISFET sensors and instrumentation in CMOS, in addition to the challenges and limitations that exist for fabrication, providing solutions to allow design of large-scale ISFET arrays for real-time DNA amplification and detection systems. I will conclude with the presentation of state-of-the-art CMOS systems that are currently being used for genomics and point-of-care diagnostics, and the results of our latest fabricated multi-sensor CMOS platform for rapid screening of infectious disease and management of antimicrobial resistance.
Bio: Pantelis Georgiou currently holds the position of Reader (Associate Professor) at Imperial College London within the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. He is the head of the Bio-inspired Metabolic Technology Laboratory in the Centre for Bio-Inspired Technology; a multi-disciplinary group that invents, develops and demonstrates advanced micro-devices to meet global challenges in biomedical science and healthcare. His research includes ultra-low power micro-electronics, bio-inspired circuits and systems, lab-on-chip technology and application of micro-electronic technology to create novel medical devices. Application areas of his research include new technologies for treatment of diabetes such as the artificial pancreas, novel Lab-on-Chip technology for genomics and diagnostics targeted towards infectious disease and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and wearable technologies for rehabilitation of chronic conditions.
Dr. Georgiou graduated with a 1st Class Honours MEng Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2004 and Ph.D. degree in 2008 both from Imperial College London. He then joined the Institute of Biomedical Engineering as Research Associate until 2010, when he was appointed Head of the Bio-inspired Metabolic Technology Laboratory. In 2011, he joined the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, where he currently holds an academic faculty position. He conducted pioneering work on the silicon beta cell and is now leading the project forward to the development of the first bio-inspired artificial pancreas for treatment of Type I diabetes. In addition to this, he made significant contributions to the development of integrated chemical-sensing systems in CMOS. He has pioneered the development of the Ion-Sensitive Field Effect Transistor, an integrated pH sensor which is currently being used in next generation DNA sequencing machines, demonstrating for the first time its use in low-power weak-inversion, and its capability in a multimodal sensing array for Lab-on-Chip applications. Dr. Georgiou is a senior member of the IEEE and IET and serves on the BioCAS and Sensory Systems technical committees of the IEEE CAS Society. He is an associate editor of the IEEE Sensors and TBioCAS journals. He is also the CAS representative on the IEEE sensors council. In 2013 he was awarded the IET Mike Sergeant Achievement Medal for his outstanding contributions to engineering and development of the bio-inspired artificial pancreas. In 2017, he was also awarded the IEEE Sensors Council Technical Achievement award. He is an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer in Circuits and Systems.
Note: The Seminar Series is eligible for ECTS credits in the EDMI doctoral program.
Read more
"Modelling Breast Cancer Using Patient-Derived Tumour Xenografts"
A Lola and John Grace Distinguished Lectures in Cancer Research
This seminar will also be televised to CHUV Visioconférence 2, to Biopôle 3 Room 00CB11 and Geneva University A04.2713
Read more
Bertarelli Neuroscience Symposium 2019
Coordinated by Bertarelli Chair in Neuroprosthetic Technology and Director of EPFL's Center for Neuroprosthetics, Professor Stéphanie Lacour, the Symposium will feature presentations from the five Catalyst Projects at Campus Biotech, addresses from keynote speakers and a cocktail party to close.
Registration
Please register HERE ! Registration is free but mandatory. Deadline July 1st.
Keynote speakers
Towards the Optical Cochlear Implant: Optogenetic Stimulation of the Auditory Pathway
Tobias Moser, University Medical Center Goettingen
Prof. Dr. Tobias Moser is a neuroscientist, otologist, and audiologist at the Göttingen Campus. Since 2015, he directs the Institute for Auditory Neuroscience at the University Medical Center Göttingen and leads research groups at the German Primate Center and the Max-Planck-Institutes for Biophysical Chemistry and Experimental Medicine. His main areas of research are synaptic coding and processing of auditory information as well as innovative approaches to the restoration of hearing in the deaf.
The design and deployment of bioelectronic platforms for translational neuroscience
Tim Denison, Oxford University
Prof. Tim Denison holds a join appointment in Engineering Science and Clinical Neurosciences at Oxford, where he explores the fundamentals of physiologic closed-loop systems. Prior to that, Tim was a Technical Fellow at Medtronic PLC and Vice President of Research & Core Technology for the Restorative Therapies Group, where he helped oversee the design of next generation neural interface and algorithm technologies for the treatment of chronic neurological disease. In 2012, he was awarded membership to the Bakken Society, Medtronic’s highest technical and scientific honor, and in 2014 he was awarded the Wallin leadership award, becoming only the second person in Medtronic history to receive both awards. In 2015, he was elected to the College of Fellows for the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Tim received an A.B. in Physics from The University of Chicago, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from MIT. He recently completed his MBA and was named a Wallman Scholar at Booth, The University of Chicago.
More information and updates at https://cnp.epfl.ch/bertarelli-neuroscience-symposium/
Read more
PRIME 2019: 15th Conference on PhD Research in Microelectronics and Electronics
PRIME has been established over the recent years as an important conference where PhD students and post-docs with less than one year post-PhD experience can present their research results and network with experts from industry, academia and research. PRIME 2019 will feature conference program reflecting the wide spectrum of research topics in Microelectronics and Electronics, building bridges between various research fields. In addition to the technical sessions, opportunities for the conference attendees will be the keynote talks, workshops and social events.
PRIME 2019 is Technically Co-sponsored by IEEE and IEEE CAS. and will be co-located with the International Conference on Synthesis, Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Methods and Applications to Circuit Design (SMACD 2019) https://www.smacd2019.com The conference proceedings will be submitted for inclusion in IEEE Xplore.
Read more
[ First joint EUREKA / Photonics21 Mirror Group Call for R&D&I project proposals addressing Photonics for advanced manufacturing | Research funding ]
Participating countries:
- Austria
- France
- Germany
- Israel
- Poland
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
The participating funding bodies from the above mentioned countries intend to fund joint research and development in the area of photonics. Applicants are expected to undertake research aiming at market-able products, services or technologies with high market potential in the participating countries and/or Europe. This call will be administered under the regulations of the intergovernmental EUREKA network.
- Call launch: March 25th, 2019
- Submission deadline for EUREKA and Innosuisse pre-proposal applications: July 25th, 2019
- Evaluation of the applications: August - November 2019
- Communication of the results: December 2019
- Start of projects: Between January and June 2020
- Call document
Submission procedure
- The consortium partners jointly have to complete the EUREKA Project Application Form: http://www.eurekanetwork.org/eureka-project-application-form.
- Early consultation with the respective national funding bodies and with the respective national EUREKA offices is strongly advised. Please note that in some countries a registration of the participants prior to the proposal submission and/or the completion of additional national forms is mandatory.
- The completed EUREKA Project Application Form should be submitted electronically by the main participant / co-ordinator (on behalf of the consortium) before the submission deadline (25 July 2019) to projects@eurekanetwork.org with reference to “EUREKA photonics call 2019” in the subject line.
- Participants are obliged to ensure that they provide all mandatory forms and information in time and that their project proposal complies with the applicable national eligibility criteria.
Switzerland:
Swiss project partners should adhere to the Innosuisse funding rules, combining an industrial and academic partner on the Swiss side of the project. Please take into consideration that the proposal should be balanced in a way that the Swiss industrial partner has to carry at least the same amount of costs as the academic partner (University, RTO, University of Applied Science, etc.). The academic partner is 100% funded and receives a further 10% of the Innosuisse funding in cash from the industrial partner. The industrial partner receives in return on investment the right to exploit the project results in its business domain. A participation based on self-funding is also possible if the ability to finance the project costs in-kind can be demonstrated.
Participants are invited to contact their national project coordinators before submitting the documents in order to check the eligibility of the project idea and consortium and consult on possible alternative funding models if necessary. In addition to the centrally submitted EUREKA Project Application Form, Swiss partners need to submit a shortened Innosuisse project application form available on the call website.
Contacts
For Photonics 21 (partner search, advice on national funding rules and writing proposals)
Swissphotonics: Christoph Harder
harder@swissphotonics.net
+41 79 219 9051
https://www.swissphotonics.net/home
For Innosuisse (eligibility, funding synchronization)
Innosuisse: Claire Dové
claire.dove@innosuisse.ch
+41 58 466 79 51
https://www.innosuisse.ch/eureka
Contact: research@epfl.ch for administrative, financial, ethics and legal assistance.
Accessibility: General public
Admittance: Free
Read more
A sneak peek with light into opaque materials
Institute of Microengineering - Distinguished Lecture (Bonus Lecture)
Location will be confirmed.
Abstract: Complex heterogeneous materials, that scatter light in a highly complex way, present a huge challenge for imaging (think of seeing inside or through milk or in biological tissues). They are also a very interesting playground to study fundamental questions in wave physics. Very recently, we have shown that random light propagation in complex media can be leveraged for computational tasks. I will illustrate this concept through various examples, ranging from brain imaging to optical computing (both classical and quantum).
Bio: Sylvain Gigan is Professor of Physics at Sorbonne Université in Paris, and group leader in Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel, at Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS, Paris). His research interests range from fundamental investigations of light propagation in complex media, biomedical imaging, sensing, signal processing, to quantum optics and quantum information in complex media. He is also the cofounder of a spin-off: LightOn (www.lighton.io) aiming at performing optical computing for machine learning and Big Data.
This lecture is part of the IMT Distinguished Lecture Series. The lecture is considered as a bonus lecture for the class MICRO-626 (usual attendance requirement does not apply, but participation is highly encouraged).
Read more
Summer School 'Open Science in Practice' 2019
Eurotech Summer School, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland - 2-6 September 2019
"Open" is the new black. Everybody talks about open science. But what does it mean exactly?
This summer school is for anyone interested in learning more about what academic research will look like in the future. We want to bring together established scientists and early career researchers to provide a stimulating, yet friendly, learning environment. No preliminary knowledge of open science is required!
The course will take place over five days, with a large part of the program dedicated to workshops and tutorials. Instructors will present their experience and expertise on how you can adopt open science tools and best practice to your research more efficient, reproducible, visible and impactful.
Registration deadline is Monday 1 July 2019, 17:00 CET
2 ECTS for doctoral students
More information on the course website.
Confirmed speakers include:
Rachael Ainsworth - Radio Astronomer, University of Manchester, UK
Adrien Ball - Senior Machine Learning Engineer, SNIPS, Paris, France
Anita Bröllochs - Head of Outreach, Protocols.io, USA
Fatma Deniz - Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California Berkeley, and Visiting Scientist, Technical University Berlin, Germany
Tim Head - Software Developer, Wild Tree Tech and Skribble
Stephan Heunis - PhD candidate at the Electrical Engineering department of the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Michel Jaccard - Lawyer, Associate at id est avocats, Lausanne, Switzerland
Wenzel Jakob - Professor at the School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL, Switzerland
Galina Limorenko - PhD candidate in the School of Life Sciences, EPFL, Switzerland
Charlotte Mazel-Cabasse - Executive Director of the Digital Humanities Center, UNIL-EPFL, Switzerland
Marc Robinson-Rechavi - Professor of Bioinformatics, UNIL, and Group Leader, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
Melanie Röthlisberger - Senior Research and Teaching Associate, English Department, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Sina Rüeger - Postdoctoral Researcher, EPFL, Switzerland
Frédéric Schütz - Statistician, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
Malvika Sharan - Computational Biologist, EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany
Bruno Strasser - Professor of History of Science, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Maximilian Strauss - Postdoctoral Researcher, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München and Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany
Jon Tennant - Rogue Palaeontologist, Interdisciplinary Research Center (CRI), Paris, France
Charlotte Teresa Weber - Researcher at The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, Norway
Martin Vetterli - Professor of Engineering and President at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
Read more
GaN for the Future
Stanford University
Institute of Microengineering - Distinguished Lecture
Campus Lausanne SV 1717 (live)
Campus Microcity MC B0 302 (video)
Zoom Live Stream: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/165147980
Abstract: There has been a tremendous amount of research and industrial investment in gallium nitride (GaN) as it is positioned to replace silicon in the billion-dollar (USD) power electronics industry, as well as the post-Moore microelectronics universe. In addition, the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded for pioneering research in GaN that led to the realization of the energy-efficient blue light-emitting diode (LED). Furthermore, GaN electronics have operated at temperatures as high as 1000°C making it a viable platform for robust space-grade electronics and nano-satellites. Even with these major technological breakthroughs, we have just begun the “GaN revolution.” New communities are adopting this platform for a multitude of emerging device applications including the following: sensing, energy harvesting, actuation, communication, and photonics. In this talk, we will review and discuss the benefits of GaN’s two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) over silicon’s p-n junction for these new and emerging applications. In addition, we will discuss opportunities for transformational development of this semiconductor device platform (e.g., interface engineering, thermal metrology, selective-area doping) to realize future GaN-based electronic systems.
Bio: Debbie G. Senesky is an Assistant Professor at Stanford University in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department and by courtesy, the Electrical Engineering Department. In addition, she is the Principal Investigator of the EXtreme Environment Microsystems Laboratory (XLab). Her research interests include the development of micro- and nano-scale sensors, high-temperature wide bandgap (GaN, SiC) electronics, and robust interface materials for operation within extreme harsh environments. She received the B.S. degree (2001) in mechanical engineering from the University of Southern California. She received the M.S. degree (2004) and Ph.D. degree (2007) in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. In addition, she has held positions at GE Sensing (formerly known as NovaSensor), GE Global Research Center, and Hewlett Packard. She has served on the program committee of the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems (Transducers), and International Symposium on Sensor Science (I3S). She is currently co-editor for IEEE Electron Device Letters, Sensors (journal), and Micromachines (journal). In recognition of her work, she is a recipient of the Emerging Leader Abie Award from AnitaB.org, NASA Early Faculty Career Award, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Ph.D. Fellowship Award. More information about Prof. Senesky can be found at xlab.stanford.edu or on Instagram/Twitter: @debbiesenesky.
Note: The Seminar Series is eligible for ECTS credits in the EDMI doctoral program.
Read more
50e Anniversaire EPFL - Journées de la Recherche - EPFL Valais Wallis, Sion
Les journées de la recherche, ce sont des rencontres entre les personnalités politiques clés de la région, les partenaires industriels locaux ainsi que les partenaires académiques des campus EPFL (Sion, Neuchâtel, Genève, Fribourg, Lausanne) autour des thèmes phares de chaque site.
L’objectif est de démontrer ce que la recherche apporte ou peut apporter à la société, à la fois avec un soutien politique et à travers une collaboration avec l’industrie.
La thématique de l'événement à EPFL Valais Wallis à Sion est l'Energie.
Read more
50e Anniversaire EPFL - Journées de la Recherche - Microcity, Neuchâtel
Les journées de la recherche, ce sont des rencontres entre les personnalités politiques clés de la région, les partenaires industriels locaux ainsi que les partenaires académiques des campus EPFL (Sion, Neuchâtel, Genève, Fribourg, Lausanne) autour des thèmes phares de chaque site.
L’objectif est de démontrer ce que la recherche apporte ou peut apporter à la société, à la fois avec un soutien politique et à travers une collaboration avec l’industrie.
La thématique de l'événement à Microcity Neuchâtel est la Microtechnique.
Read more
50e Anniversaire EPFL - Journées de la Recherche - Campus Biotech, Genève
Les journées de la recherche, ce sont des rencontres entre les personnalités politiques clés de la région, les partenaires industriels locaux ainsi que les partenaires académiques des campus EPFL (Sion, Neuchâtel, Genève, Fribourg, Lausanne) autour des thèmes phares de chaque site.
L’objectif est de démontrer ce que la recherche apporte ou peut apporter à la société, à la fois avec un soutien politique et à travers une collaboration avec l’industrie.
La thématique de l'événement au Campus Biotech est la Recherche en neuro et sur le cerveau.
Read more
2019 FAI/DIAS International Drone & Digital Aviation Conference
Êtes-vous prêts pour la nouvelle ère de l’aviation ?
Intitulée « Delivering the Future Digital Aviation Technologies to Enable Sustainable & Scalable Solution », la conférence réunit les acteurs internationaux majeurs de l’industrie, du monde scientifique et des agences intergouvernementales. Les interventions d'experts leaders dans leur domaine permettront de découvrir les derniers développements à travers une variété de points de vue. L’événement est une opportunité unique d’apprendre, d’échanger et de façonner la dimension aérienne de notre société digitale.
Au programme :
- Les dernières innovations technologiques de l’EPFL, l’ETHZ, et de l’UZH
- Défi souterrain de la DARPA : voler (sans pilote) sous terre
- La vision de DJI pour un ciel plus sûr
- Comment EHang veut « laisser l’humanité voler librement comme un oiseau »
- Faire accepter la mobilité aérienne urbaine par le public
- U-Space, le progrès de l’Europe pour rendre l’aviation sans pilote sûre, sécurisée, silencieuse, propre et efficace
- Comment rcéer une nouvelle industrie digitale, par le CEO de Parrot
- Qu’offrira Google Wing ?
Dans le contexte d’une avancée rapide de l’innovation technologique, la conférence représente un rendez-vous incontournable pour une interaction à l’échelle mondiale autour des drones et de l’aviation numérique. Suite au succès des deux précédentes éditions, cette 3ème édition continue de participer à la définition de l’avenir de l’industrie des drones, en établissant une relation durable entre l’aviation digitale et la société dans son ensemble.
La conférence a lieu dans le cadre des EPFL Drone Days 2019 et conjointement avec les Portes Ouvertes de l’EPFL. 30'000 visiteurs sont attendus. Une course de drones faisant partie du championnat mondial, l’EPFL Drone Racing Cup 2019, aura également lieu.
Read more
50e Anniversaire EPFL - Journées de la Recherche - BlueFactory Fribourg
Les journées de la recherche, ce sont des rencontres entre les personnalités politiques clés de la région, les partenaires industriels locaux ainsi que les partenaires académiques des campus EPFL (Sion, Neuchâtel, Genève, Fribourg, Lausanne) autour des thèmes phares de chaque site.
L’objectif est de démontrer ce que la recherche apporte ou peut apporter à la société, à la fois avec un soutien politique et à travers une collaboration avec l’industrie.
La thématique de l'événement au BlueFactory à Fribourg est l'Eco-bâtiment et écologie.
Read more
50e Anniversaire EPFL - Journées de la Recherche - Campus Lausanne
Les journées de la recherche, ce sont des rencontres entre les personnalités politiques clés de la région, les partenaires industriels locaux ainsi que les partenaires académiques des campus EPFL (Sion, Neuchâtel, Genève, Fribourg, Lausanne) autour des thèmes phares de chaque site.
L’objectif est de démontrer ce que la recherche apporte ou peut apporter à la société, à la fois avec un soutien politique et à travers une collaboration avec l’industrie.
L'événement sur le Campus lausannois de l'EPFL se déclinera autour des projets phares et aura lieu durant les Portes ouvertes de l'EPFL (14 et 15 septembre 2019, https://www.epfl.ch/campus/events/fr/celebration/portes-ouvertes/).
Read more
title to be announced
WEEKLY BIOENGINEERING COLLOQUIA SERIES
(sandwiches served)
Abstract:
To be provided.
Bio:
Education:
1973-76 B.A., Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH (USA)
1977-82 Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Positions:
1982-85 Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (USA)
1984 Visiting Assistant Professor, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (USA)
1985-88 Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine, CA (USA)
1988-91 Associate Professor, University of California, Irvine, CA (USA)
1991- Hannah Professor of Microbial Ecology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (USA)
Zoom link for attending remotely: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/715846975
Read more
Engineering PhD Summit on Intelligent Systems
The School of Engineering of EPFL is pleased to announce the 2nd annual PhD Summit, a workshop for final year PhD students interested in a career in academia. We invite to campus, on a competitive basis, a group of exceptional graduating PhD students from institutions worldwide.
Selected candidates will be invited to the EPFL campus in Switzerland to present their research and get informal feedback from top faculty of the School of Engineering. Each accepted student will be given the opportunity to visit EPFL laboratories related to the summit theme and have intensive exchange with the lab heads and the students.
The PhD Summit prize for the best presentation and research content will be awarded during the workshop.
Funds for travel and accommodation will be provided for the selected candidates.
The Engineering PhD Summit is organised by the School of Engineering, with the support of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences, the School of Life Sciences and the School of Basic Sciences.
ntelligent systems — software and/or hardware systems that can interact with their dynamic environments, process data, perform proper actions, and improve over time — are becoming ubiquitous. Advancements in information technology, artificial intelligence and control, computing capabilities, instrumentation, sensors and actuators have dramatically increased the pace at which intelligent systems enter our daily lives, e.g. in our software, smartphones, cars, robots, and infrastructure.
Intelligent systems involve exciting scientific and engineering questions: How can we push the technological limits to make intelligent systems more robust, more useful, more intuitive, better at improving and possibly repairing themselves? How can we approach the adaptive behavior exhibited in nature?
The Annual PhD Summit of the School of Engineering at EPFL will cover the theory, design, and applications of intelligent systems with an interdisciplinary perspective. Last year Ph.D. students working in fields such as robotics, embedded systems, internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer games, human-computer interfaces, computational neuroscience, and cognitive science, with novel research contributions that fit into the general theme of Intelligent Systems are eligible to apply to the summit.
Read more
Architects of Structural Biology: Bragg, Perutz, Kendrew and Hodgkin
By John Meurig Thomas
Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge
When Max Perutz and John Kendrew, principal founders of structural molecular biology, set about, in the late 1940s, to solve the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin, many scientists, notably developmental biologists and physiologists, ridiculed the name molecular biology and others accused them and their team, which later included Crick and Watson, of practicing biochemistry without license. Yet the revolution that they, Dorothy Hodgkin and their mentor Lawrence Bragg, initiated in the early 1950s led to a new era in modern medicine, and had a transformative influence on all aspects of biology.
In addition, the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (under the aegis of the U.K. Medical Research Council) that they established in 1962 in Cambridge, is arguably one of the most successful advanced research centres ever. Twenty three Nobel Laureates (11 of them from the USA) have worked there; and numerous medicines used world-wide for the treatment and cure of breast cancer, arthritis and life-threatening respiratory conditions have emerged from discoveries made there.
How was such a successful laboratory founded and managed? And how did the four protagonists – three chemists and a physicist – and other great contemporaries of theirs interact? This talk will address these questions and describe individual personalities, achievements, idiosyncrasies, and the roles of J. D. Bernal (friend of Picasso, Paul Robeson and Earl Mountbatten), Francis Crick, Aaron Klug and David Phillips, who solved the first structure of an enzyme at the Royal Institution (RI). It was at the RI, and later in Departments of Mineralogy and Textile Physics, that Bernal and Astbury first investigated the structures of “living molecules”. The rivalry between the Cambridge trio and the brilliant, charismatic, U.S. scientist Linus Pauling will also be discussed.
Read more
title to be announced
WEEKLY BIOENGINEERING COLLOQUIA SERIES
(sandwiches served)
Abstract:
To be provided.
Bio:
Dr. Hari Shroff received a B.S.E. in bioengineering from the University of Washington in 2001, and under the supervision of Dr. Jan Liphardt, completed his Ph.D. in biophysics at the University of California at Berkeley in 2006 . He spent the next three years performing postdoctoral research under the mentorship of Eric Betzig at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Research Campus where his research focused on development of photactivated localization microscopy (PALM), an optical superresolution technique. Dr. Shroff is now chief of NIBIB's Section on High Resolution Optical Imaging laboratory, where he and his staff are developing new imaging tools for application in biological and clinical research.
Zoom link for attending remotely: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/118303710
Read more
Photonics Industry Day at the FORUM EPFL
The EPFL Photonics Chapter and Swissphotonics organize the workshop “Photonics Industry in Switzerland” on October 10th during the next Forum EPFL 2019.
Students need to register through their Forum EPFL account
Read more
Flexible Radios and Flexible Networks
Cornell University
Institute of Microengineering - Distinguished Lecture
Campus Lausanne SV 1717 (live)
Campus Microcity MC B0 302 (video)
Zoom Live Stream: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/637254875
Abstract: Over the past decades the world has become increasingly connected, with communications driving both markets and social movements. Low power electronics, efficient communications, and better battery technology have all contributed to this revolution, but the cost and power required for these systems must be pushed further to make cheap, ubiquitous, seamless communication accessible to a wider community. In this talk I will discuss two engineering approaches to this problem. I will look at various approaches to drive the power down in radio networks that span across circuits and systems. I will also look at creative biologically inspired approaches to enabling very low power networks and IoT. Finally, I will discuss how by adding flexibility and building reconfigurable hardware, we can likewise build lower power and less costly consumer systems that can adapt across protocols and networks and work under changing device technologies.
Bio: Alyssa Apsel received the B.S. from Swarthmore College in 1995 and the Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, in 2002. She joined Cornell University in 2002, where she is currently Director of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She was a Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London from 2016-2018. The focus of her research is on power-aware mixed signal circuits and design for highly scaled CMOS and modern electronic systems. Her current research is on the leading edge of ultra-low power and flexible RF interfaces for IoT. She has authored or coauthored over 100 refereed publications including one book in related fields of RF mixed signal circuit design, ultra-low power radio, interconnect design and planning, photonic integration, and process invariant circuit design techniques resulting in ten patents. She received best paper awards at ASYNC 2006 and IEEE SiRF 2012, had a MICRO “Top Picks” paper in 2006, received a college teaching award in 2007, received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2004, and was selected by Technology Review Magazine as one of the Top Young Innovators in 2004. She is a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE CAS for 2018-2019, and has also served on the Board of Governors of IEEE CAS (2014-2016) and as an Associate Editor of various journals including IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I and II, and Transactions on VLSI. She has also served as the chair of the Analog and Signal Processing Technical committee of ISCAS 2011, is on the Senior Editorial Board of JETCAS, as Deputy Editor in Chief of Circuits and Systems Magazine, and as the co-founder and Chair of ISCAS Late Breaking News. In 2016, Dr. Apsel co-founded AlphaWave IP Corporation, a multi-national Silicon IP provider focused on multi-standard analog Silicon IP solutions for the world of IOT. As Chief Technology Officer of AlphaWave, Dr. Apsel led the company’s global research capability with offices in Silicon Valley, Toronto, and London.
Note: The Seminar Series is eligible for ECTS credits in the EDMI doctoral program.
Read more
Open Science Day
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of EPFL, its President Martin Vetterli invites you to explore what is Open Science with world-class researchers and influential policy makers. How can we successfully transition to digital scholarship? What will knowledge production and dissemination resemble in the future? This day will be dedicated to discussing the promises and challenges of open and reproducible science in various disciplines present at EPFL, from the life sciences to particle physics.
The event will take place in the main auditorium of the landmark Rolex Learning Center on EPFL Campus. It is free of charge and is open to everyone. However, registration is required.
MORE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION HERE
Open science is a complex and transversal topic that can only be understood when a variety of point of views collide. We are honored to confirm that the following people have accepted our invitation to share their expertise with the participants:
Sir Philip Campbell, Editor-in-Chief Springer Nature
Ingrid Daubechies, Duke University
Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General
Maria Leptin, EMBO Director
José Moura, IEEE President Elect
Fernando Perez, University of California Berkeley
Robert-Ian Smits, TU/e Executive Board President
Marcel Salathé, EPFL
Bruno Strasser, University of Geneva
Jeannette Wing, Columbia University
Read more
The LIMNA symposium on Emerging Topics and Technologies in Metabolism
The registration to the LIMNA Symposium on October 29, 2019 at the Olympic Museum, Lausanne is now open! The LIMNA symposium on Emerging Topics and Technologies in Metabolism will gather speakers using “next-generation” approaches (systems genetics, omic, computation) to study metabolism-related processes and tissues.
Registration is now open!
Deadline for abstract submission: 01.09.2019
Deadline for registration only (registration is free but mandatory) : 01.10.2019 Participation will be likely recognized by the Federation of Swiss Cantonal Veterinary Officiers as a half day of ongoing training.
Read more
Merging Humans and Machines with Hydrogel Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT
Institute of Microengineering - Distinguished Lecture
Campus Lausanne SV 1717 (live)
Campus Microcity MC B0 302 (video)
Zoom Live Stream: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/385971995
Abstract: While human tissues and organs are mostly soft, wet and bioactive; machines are commonly hard, dry and biologically inert. Bridging human-machine interfaces is of imminent importance in addressing grand societal challenges in healthcare, security, sustainability, education and joy of living. However, interfacing human and machines is extremely challenging due to their fundamentally contradictory properties. At MIT SAMs Lab, we propose to harness “hydrogel technology” to form long-term, high-efficacy, compatible and seamless interfaces between humans and machines. On one side, hydrogels with similar mechanical and physiological properties as tissues and organs can naturally integrate with human body over the long term, greatly alleviating the foreign body response and mechanical mismatches. On the other side, the hydrogels with intrinsic or integrated electrodes, optical fibers, sensors, actuators and circuits can effectively bridge external machines and human bodies via electrical, optical, chemical and mechanical interactions. In this talk, I will first discuss the mechanisms to design extreme properties for hydrogels, including tough, resilient, adhesive, strong and antifatigue, for long-term robust human-machine interfaces. Then I will discuss a set of novel hydrogel devices that interface with the human body, including i). hydrogel neural probes capable of electro-opto-fluidic interrogation of single neurons in mice over life time; ii). ingestible hydrogel pills capable of continuously monitoring core-body physiological conditions over a month; and iii). untethered fast and forceful hydrogel robots controlled by magnetic fields for minimal invasive operations. I will conclude the talk by proposing a systematic approach to design next-generation human-machine interfaces based on hydrogel technology.
Bio: Xuanhe Zhao is an associate professor in mechanical engineering at MIT. His research group designs soft materials that possess unprecedented properties to address grant societal challenges. Dr. Zhao is the recipient of the early career award and young investigator award from National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Society of Engineering Science, American Vacuum Society, Adhesion Society, Materials Today, Journal of Applied Mechanics, and Extreme Mechanics Letters. He held the Hunt Faculty Scholar at Duke, and the d'Arbeloff Career Development Chair and Noyce Career Development Professor at MIT. He was selected as a highly cited researcher by Web of Science in 2018.
Note: The Seminar Series is eligible for ECTS credits in the EDMI doctoral program.
Read more
Dr. Silvano De Franceschi - IMT Distinguished Lecture
CEA-INAC
Institute of Microengineering - Distinguished Lecture
Campus Lausanne SV 1717 (live)
Campus Microcity MC B0 302 (video)
Zoom Live Stream: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/982557518
Abstract and Bio to follow.
Note: The Seminar Series is eligible for ECTS credits in the EDMI doctoral program
Read more
title to be announced
WEEKLY BIOENGINEERING COLLOQUIA SERIES
(sandwiches served)
Abstract:
To be provided.
Bio:
To be provided.
Zoom link for attending remotely: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/855402627
Read more