News

EPFL students taking the Assistive Technologies Challenge class have developed personalized systems for patients with motor impairments.

The Rodolphe and Renée Haenny Foundation will award its prize in November to Emad Oveisi, research and teaching associate at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Electron Microscopy of the School of Engineering.

The director of the Mechanical Metallurgy Laboratory at the School of Engineering is to receive CHF 1.7 million from the SNSF for his research into controlling the flow of liquid metals for 3D printing using magnetic fields.

A team led by Nicola Marzari has won the inaugural PRACE award for investigations into a fascinating class of novel materials that could underpin next-generation electronic and optoelectronic applications and quantum computing.

Anirudh Raju Natarajan, recently appointed as a tenure-track assistant professor at EPFL’s School of Engineering, is passionate about materials. His interests are in using computational methods to design high-performance engineering alloys. In this interview, Prof. Natarajan shares insights into his unbridled curiosity.

Gian Luca Barbruni, a doctoral student in the Integrated Circuits Laboratory and Medtronic Chair in Neuroengineering at the School of Engineering, had won the Best Student Paper Award for Electronics at the last International Conference on Modern Circuits and Systems Technologies (MOCAST 2022) on Electronics and Communications.

In 2018, EPFL introduced a program whereby highly motivated Master’s students can create a startup for their Master’s projects. We spoke with two recent graduates who used the program to launch their own businesses.

The team unveiled its latest car yesterday evening at EPFL’s new makerspace. Their speedster will compete in four Formula Student Electric races throughout Europe this summer.

EPFL spin-off ArcoScreen has developed a platform that turns the discovery of new drugs for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and cancer from a marathon into a sprint. The firm’s microfluidic readout system assesses the response of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to new substances, delivering significant time and financial gains for pharmaceutical companies.

A team of EPFL engineers has developed a 3D-printing method that uses light to make objects out of opaque resin in a matter of seconds. Their breakthrough could have promising applications in the biomedical industry, such as to make artificial arteries.

The Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology has announced the appointment of professors at EPFL.

Professor Sandro Carrara, from the School of Engineering and Director of the Integrated Circuits Laboratory, has been elected Vice President for Publications of the IEEE Sensors Council for the 2023-2024 term.

EPFL scientists have developed a digital model of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, which realistically simulates the movements of the animal. The twin is a big step towards reverse engineering the neuromechanical control of animal behavior, and developing bioinspired robots.

Two EPFL students, Nour Ghalia Abassi and Mohamed Ali Dhraief, spent ten days in Ghana working on water-related projects.

Working closely with users and therapists, EPFL spin-off Emovo Care has developed a light and easy-to-attach hand exoskeleton for people unable to grasp objects following a stroke or accident. The device has been successfully tested in several hospitals and rehabilitation centers.

EPFL’s School of Engineering has recognized five doctoral assistants for their outstanding contribution to teaching. This new award will now be handed out each semester.

Assistant Professor of Microengineering in the School of Engineering, Cristina Benea-Chelmus has a passion for building new things. As Deputy Director of EPFL’s new Center for Quantum Science and Engineering (QSE), she will be exploring new hybrid photonic technologies that may benefit quantum applications, along with helping to build a world-class transdisciplinary research and education center.

From 29 April to 8 May 2022, EPFL will offer the public the chance to discover the close links between science and the animal world during the BEA fair in Bern.

EPFL scientists in Neuchâtel have developed a tandem solar cell that can deliver a certified efficiency of 29.2%. This achievement was made possible by combining a perovskite solar cell with a textured silicon solar cell.

The EPFL Startup Launchpad has just granted two innogrants to ClearSky and Emissium - while the former is developing a technology that will use cutting-edge AI technology to transform the way our mobiles use our data, the latter is building a blockchain-based technology which has a vision to speed up the transition to more sustainable living by decarbonizing energy consumption.

Swiss roboticists and economists from EPFL and University of Lausanne developed a method for estimating the probability of jobs being automated by future intelligent robots and suggesting career transitions with lower risks and minimal retraining effort.

Maryam Kamgarpour, who recently joined EPFL as a tenure track assistant professor in mechanical engineering, is developing automatic control algorithms for smart systems and robotics.

The class, which is part of the Master of Science in Microengineering program, lets students experience the design process from start to finish.

EPFL engineers have developed a low-temperature annealing method that maintains the structure of gold and silver when the two metals are combined in an alloy. Their discovery will prove useful in the manufacture of contact lenses, holographic optical elements and other optical components, since the new alloys reflect the full spectral range.

EPFL has joined six other Swiss research institutions in CircuBAT, an initiative selected for the first Innosuisse Flagship program, in order to develop a circular business model for lithium-ion batteries.

As of January 1^st, 2022, the EPFL EcoCloud Centre is headed by Professor David Atienza. Its mission has been expanded with a strong new focus on fundamental research and education in the domain of sustainable cloud computing.

The Swiss National Science Foundation has awarded MARVEL full funding plus the highest possible bonus for its third and final phase, which will run from May 2022 until April 2026.

EPFL engineers have developed a silicone raspberry that can help teach harvesting robots to grasp fruit without exerting too much pressure.

Robotic wheelchairs may soon be able to move through crowds smoothly and safely. As part of CrowdBot, an EU-funded project, EPFL researchers are exploring the technical, ethical and safety issues related to this kind of technology. The aim of the project is to eventually help the disabled get around more easily.

Ortal Senouf, a doctoral student in the Signal Processing Laboratory 4 of the School of Engineering, and in the Chair of Mathematical Data Science, is the first researcher at EPFL to receive an Apple grant.

Kirsten Moselund has her work cut out for her, and she couldn’t be happier. She has just been appointed full professor of electronics and microtechnology at EPFL’s School of Engineering and will run the new Laboratory for Nano and Quantum Technologies at the Paul Scherrer Institute.

The new mechanical and electronic prototyping Discovery Learning Lab – known as the Student Prototyping and Outreach Tank, or “SPOT” for short – opened its doors on 25 March. The building houses all the resources students need to work on their projects.

EPFL engineers have discovered that increasing the temperature of cartilage in the knee during physical exertion could prevent the cartilage from degenerating.

Engineers at EPFL and ETH developed a variable stiffness catheter made of nontoxic threads that can transition between soft and rigid states during surgery. It may make minimally invasive surgical interventions, including the treatment of cardiac arrhythmia, simpler and more effective.

EPFL is introducing three new Master’s programs to widen the offer of the School’s cross-disciplinary study programs in basic sciences and engineering: the Master’s in Neuro-X, the Master’s in Quantum Science and Engineering and the Master’s in Statistics. Their doors will open to motivated students as of September 2022. The application process for all Master’s programs is open until April 15^th

EPFL engineering student Lucas Froissart designed an exoskeleton capable of propelling robot explorers into subsurface tunnels on the moon.

EPFL researchers have discovered that gadolinium-doped cerium oxide, a compound they created in the lab, could be a promising alternative to certain piezoelectric materials: it has the same proprieties yet may be 100 times more effective. It’s also lead-free, unlike the best piezoelectric materials, which means that it could be employed in bio-compatible medical applications. Further research will be conducted on this highly promising compound and similar materials.

A comprehensive review just published in Nature Review Materials: all you want to know about crystalline silicon, past, present and future

Giulia Tagliabue has been awarded the 2021 Early Career Award in Nanophotonics. This annual award from the scientific journal Nanophotonics is intended to distinguish and acknowledge early-stage researchers whose research has advanced the fundamental understanding of photonics

EPFL spin-off Leman Biotech has developed a protein that can improve the effectiveness of immunotherapy drugs used to treat some types of cancer. The firm has just completed its first funding round, in the amount of $11 million.

A team of School of Engineering scientists engineer nanoscale guitar strings that vibrate tens of billions of times when plucked at cryogenic temperatures, with a material originally developed for electronic transistors.

In the latest edition of Véronique Michaud and Thomas Weber’s graduate course on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Engineering (IEE), nine different teams worked with companies on a prototyping challenge. Under this year’s course theme of “Smart Sensing” companies such as Montblanc, Nestlé, and Vacheron Constantin submitted proposals for collaborative projects, taken up by interdisciplinary student teams and supported by a diverse group of faculty. The winner of this year’s IEE Prize, as judged by a panel of experts, was a product concept developed in collaboration with Sequent, a Swiss startup in the domain of self-charging smart watches. The students’ iMat proposes a sensor-enabled fitness mat with smart user feedback to enable guided exercising.

Kyojin Choo has just been appointed tenure-track assistant professor at EPFL’s School of Engineering, where he will combine research in power management, microtechnology and analog-to-digital converters (ADC) to make electronics smaller and more efficient. 

Professor Sylvie Roke, head of the Laboratory for Fundamental BioPhotonics, (LBP) and Diretor of the Bioengineering institute in the School of Engineering, has been elected new member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SAWT).

They are EPFL’s best ambassadors to the next generation. To celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we met with four young women who are inspiring the scientists of tomorrow.

Professor Giovanni De Micheli, director of the Integrated Systems Laboratory (LSI) at the School of Engineering, has been elected as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Dragan Damjanovic was named best teacher in the materials science section in 2021. And now, after serving for over 30 years as an EPFL professor, he’s retiring. We spoke with him about the one thing that’s meant the most to him throughout his career: teaching. 

Prof. David Atienza, head of the Embedded Systems Laboratory (ESL) at EPFL School of Engineering and new Director of EcoCloud, has been elected as Chair of the European Design and Automation Association (EDAA). The EDAA pursues educational, scientific and technical activities for the advancement in the international community of electronic design and design automation.

EPFL researchers have developed a new type of printing process that involves removing material rather than depositing it. Their method could be particularly useful for printing banknotes and ID documents, for example.

A team led by Yegor Piskarev has developed an alternative method for wrapping pallets. Their ingenious idea has won the Innovate2030 Challenge.