SB@EPFL Mar 2020 ‒ SB ‐ EPFL

School of Basic Sciences – March 2020

Sixteen SB scientists in the 2019 Highly Cited list

New Faculty

Henning Stahlberg – Full Professor of Physics – January 2020

Henning Stahlberg is an internationally recognized leader in the field of cryogenic electron microscopy. He contributed significantly to the development of this technology thanks to his expertise in all types of imaging, and he has also worked successfully on detectors and software for data processing and analysis.

Mike Seidel – Full Professor of Physics – January 2020

Mike Seidel is a recognised expert in the physics of particle accelerators and related technologies. He has gained international attention for various scientific projects and results, including some of the most recent ones at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), the modernisation of the proton accelerator and the conceptual development of new applications at the Center for Proton Therapy.

Mitali Banerjee – Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Physics – January 2020

Mitali Banerjee is a scientist with exceptional potential. She attracted particular international attention for designing and setting up an experimental installation for measuring thermal conductivity in two-dimensional materials. In doing so, she rose to an exceptionally difficult challenge which many experts had regarded as impossible.

Christian Rüegg – Full Professor of Physics at ETH Zurich and EPFL- April 2020

Christian Rüegg is an internationally acclaimed solid-state physicist. In 2019, the Federal Council appointed him as the new director of the PSI. He will take up this post on 1st April 2020. At the same time, the two Federal Institutes of Technology have each appointed him to a full professorship in recognition of his scientific achievements. Christian Rüegg’s work has a particular focus on strongly correlated quantum phenomena in low-dimensional magnetic materials.

Nicolas Boumal – Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Mathematics – July 2020

Nicolas Boumal is a talented and highly regarded young scientist. His research focuses on non-convex optimisation, which has particular applications in statistical estimates, inverse problems and automatic learning. Nicolas Boumal’s work is both theoretical and application-based. His goal is to understand the mathematical structures behind the performance of non-convex optimisation algorithms.

Pasquale Scarlino – Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Physics – October 2020

Pasquale Scarlino is a talented young experimental physicist with great potential. His main focus is on quantum dots for spin qubits, a promising technology for quantum computers. The results he has already achieved have provided a real stimulus in the area of circuit quantum electrodynamics based on semiconductor quantum dots, and have attracted international attention.

News

Introducing the light-operated hard drives of tomorrow

10 Mar 2020

Could mining gold from waste reduce its great cost?

28 Jan 2020

Big data toolkit to mine the dark genome for precision medicine

4 Dec 2019

The random importance of clouds

25 Nov 2019

Unraveling gene expression

21 Nov 2019

A breakthrough in malaria research

14 Nov 2020

See all

Awards

SNSF Eccellenza Grant – Pablo Rivera Fuentes

For his project “Chemical probes to control redox biology with subcellular precision”

2019 Fermat Prize – Maryna Viazovska

“For her solution to the famous sphere packing problems in dimensions 8 and 24”

ERC Consolidator Grant – Elena Goun

For her project METABOLIGHT: “Optical imaging platform to unravel metabolic reprogramming of cancer: a path for improved treatments”

International Catalysis Award (IACS) – Xile Hu

“For the creative and high-impact work in combining material development, electrochemistry and concepts of homogeneous catalysis for the production of solar fuels”

See all

Annual report

The 2019 Annual Report is available in an electronic version on our website :
//go.epfl.ch/SBannualreport
Printed copies will be available when the School will reopen, after the pandemic crisis shutdown.

Coronavirus

The School of Basic Sciences offices and labs are currently closed for the coronavirus pandemic.
Please see //go.epfl.ch/coronavirus for updates.

Zoom security

There has recently been a spate of reports concerning Zoom’s security, and that has led some big institutions to prohibit its use, while in the meantime, all of the published security failures have been addressed and some improvements are still being implemented.

Please look out for updates and consider the appropriate use of the videoconferencing application, which is much needed nowadays for meetings, lessons, and seminars. We are continuously monitoring Zoom’s security reports and will inform you on the following page //go.epfl.ch/zoom.