Speakers

Prof. Vanessa Wood is Vice President for Knowledge Transfer and Corporate Relations at ETH Zurich since Jan 1, 2021. She heads the Institute for Electronics and leads the Materials and Device Engineering Group. Vanessa Wood’s research focuses on understanding and characterising transport phenomena in complex materials. Over the past nine years, she has established herself as a leader in this field. Many of Wood’s publications testify to her special ability to combine basic research with a wide range of practical applications. She has carried out numerous industry projects, also within the framework of EU Horizon 2020 and Innosuisse (Swiss Innovation Agency) projects. Her previous research at MIT in battery and display technologies went into then spin-offs and now established companies Kateeva, 24M, and QDVision/Samsung. In 2015, she founded the ETH spin-off external pageBattrioncall_made, offering sophisticated and more sustainable battery technology.

Dominic Herzog is the Chief Data Scientist at TX Group AG, Switzerland's leading private media group which reaches over 80% of the Swiss internet audience. In his role, he oversees cross-company data analytics and machine learning projects, and sets the strategic direction for using data science techniques to improve the group's services. Dominic holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Basel, where he specialized in Game and Auction Theory.

Nico Gorbach completed his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering as well as a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cape Town (in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research) before pursuing a doctoral degree in the Institute for Machine Learning at ETH Zurich. Thereafter, Nico joined IBM Research as a postdoctoral researcher prior to joining The Adecco Group as a data scientist.

Dr. Silvia Quarteroni is Chief Transformation Officer at the external pageSwiss Data Science Centercall_made and is in charge of the team Leading Organizations to Digital Transformation. She holds an MSc in Computer Science from EPFL and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of York, UK. She was a senior researcher at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, where she worked on Marie Curie and ERC projects relating to natural language processing. From 2012 to 2019, she was a Senior Manager and NLP expert at ELCA Informatique Switzerland.

Verena Zimmermann is Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) for Security, Privacy and Society and conducts research at the intersection of humans and technology with a focus on human-computer interaction and the human aspects of IT security and privacy. They aim to tackle security-related challenges using interdisciplinary approaches and develop human-centred solutions. Research areas comprise usable authentication and communication, designing privacy-friendly smart home applications, or addressing security challenges in smart cities. 

Fanny Yang an Assistant Professor and head of the Statistical Machine Learning group. She's interested in theoretically understanding and developing tools in machine learning and statistics that work well. She is curious about gaining theoretical understanding for the generalization properties of overparameterized models for high-dimensional data (motivated by neural networks), as well as a plethora of questions related to obtaining more trustworthy ML models, specifically distributional robustness, domain generalization and interpretability.

Marc Pollefeys is a Full Professor in Computer Science and head of the Computer Vision and Geometry Group. His research focuses on computer vision with a particular focus on geometric aspects. The group’s goal is to study and develop techniques to extract 3D shape, motion, appearance, and calibration information from images. Their current focus is on mobile computer vision and modelling large-scale scenes and dynamic events. 

Sebastian Glink, founder & co-CEO of CLIMADA Technologies, is responsible for Product Development & Technology at the ETH spin-off. He has a background in Meteorology, Geophysics, Business Intelligence & Big Data Analytics and has acquired more than ten years of experience in building scalable technology solutions in insurance, reinsurance and retail industry.
He says that weather & climate were always his passion, and that CLIMADA provides him the opportunity to quantify the impact of climate change and help organizations to become more resilient.

Cedric Gysel is a Manager for Sustainable Innovation and Circular Solutions for the Johnson & Johnson Office of Sustainability, driving human-centered solutions for patients and customers and leading key innovation projects for device & packaging sustainability as we all product end of life programs. He has more than 15 years of experience with the development and design of devices and combination products. He holds a bachelor’s in pharmaceutical technology from the University of Basel and a master’s in medical device technology from the University of Applied Science.

Dr. Stephan Fox is head of the ETH Feasibility Lab. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe (KIT). His main research interests include user-centred product development and med tech. He spent parts of his studies at INP Grenoble and ETH Zurich. He is currently developing products in cooperation with Kinderspital Zurich to ease the treatment of paediatric skin burns.

Prof. Máté Bezdek is head of the Functional Coordination Chemistry group. They aim to apply synthetic inorganic chemistry tools to develop functional molecules and materials. This includes the synthesis of organometallic molecules and metallopolymers relevant to energy storage technologies. Furthermore, they develop new sensing mechanisms for the low-cost and rapid detection of environmental pollutants.

Prof. Katrien De Bock is head of the Laboratory of Exercise and Health and a member of the Institute for Human movement Sciences and Sport. Her group aims to unravel the metabolic and molecular pathways through which different cell types in the muscles communicate. The examine the regulation of muscle mass, muscle vascularization and angiogenesis.  Her research in muscle biology has implications for patients with muscle dystrophies, for metabolism and weight loss, and it might contribute to advancing health and nutrition especially in ageing.

Prof. Christina M. Spengler is head of the Exercise Physiology Lab. Their focus is to understand mechanisms and interactions of the respiratory, cardiovascular, neuro-​muscular and metabolic system during sleep and resting wakefulness as well as adaptations to acute and chronic exercise in humans. The aim is to develop new training strategies and technologies for improving athletic performance, promote sustained health, and improve rehabilitation of patients with cardiorespiratory, neuromuscular and metabolic diseases.  

Nevena Paunovic is an ETH Pioneer Fellow, Dr. sc. ETH Zurich with two master’s degrees and experience in a community pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry. Currently, she is the CEO of Transire Bio and determined to use her competences to bring a revolutionary painless technology for the delivery of injectable drugs to the market and improve the quality of life of millions of patients.

Riccardo Tinivella is Head of System Engineering at external pageBrusa HyPowercall_made with over 8 years of experience in electronic design, high-performance electro-optical systems, and power electronics. In his current role, he leads a team of 30 system engineers, provides technical guidance and mentorship, and develops and maintains system processes. He has worked on several projects related to automotive electronic and powertrain design, DC/DC converters, and ultrawide DC/DC converters. He has expertise in software development and has taught courses in quantitative finance using Python.

Salvatore Race studied Electronic Engineering at the University of Naples, Italy where he received his Master degree summa cum laude in 2018. In 2019 he joined the Advanced Power Semiconductor Laboratory at ETH Zurich as PhD student where he is currently investigating electrothermal and electromagnetic effects in semiconductor-based power components.

Dr. Gianfranco Guidati holds a doctoral degree in noise emissions from wind turbines from the University of Stuttgart. He is the project manager of ReMaP (Renewable Management and Real-Time Control Platform) at the ETH Energy Science Center. Previously, he worked for several years as a group leader of Thermal Processes at Alstom Technology Center and as the programme manager of Future Technology at Alstom Power.

Nicolas Noiray is an Associate Professor at ETH Zürich, where he established the Laboratory of Combustion and Acoustics for Power and Propulsion Systems. His research focuses on modelling and controlling reacting and non-reacting flows and developing new technologies for the energy and transport sectors. The group’s theoretical, computational, and experimental research activities in combustion, acoustics and fluid mechanics address fundamental and applied problems relevant to the development of workable, robust, and sustainable technologies in the energy and transport sectors.

Jakub Szczesniak (Kuba) is a co-founder of external pageScandenscall_made, a growing ETH spin-off that specializes in software solutions for planning and implementing building decarbonization projects at scale. He holds a degree in Energy Science and Technology from ETH Zurich and has an extensive background in research, having held positions in Switzerland, UK, USA, and Singapore, with a primary focus on the integration of renewable energies and large-scale building retrofitting. Prior to founding Scandens, he conducted a year-long research stay at MIT, where he specialized in urban building energy modelling.

Dr. Paul Baade is CEO of the ETH spin-off external pageeightinkscall_made. He has gained experience with lithium ion batteries with the Formula Student project and at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. The start-up is based on a technology that he developed during his PhD at ETH and aims to unlock solid-state batteries. It enables novel cell designs with high-performance materials, making the production methods highly scalable. 

Tobias Rippstein is a process engineer at external pageHuber+Suhner AGcall_made with a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zurich. With 3 years of experience in each R&D and Process Development, he is well aware of the challenges for the production department. Passionate about technology and innovation and his desire to make a positive impact, Tobias has been involved in an Innosuisse project that developed a smart camera to detect manual labour steps to tackle rising quality requirements.  

Remo Gander did his master's degree at HSLU in industrial engineering/business development. After graduating, he focused on how agile methods can create added value in the manufacturing industry. He has been working for external pageBossard Groupcall_made since 2015, including several years abroad. He is currently responsible for the strategic and operational development of the new Smart Factory Assembly business field within the Group, in which Bossard customers worldwide are supported in leveraging the potential of digital technologies in their production.

Jonas Conrad was born in Heidelberg, Germany and was later brought up in Zug, Switzerland. He studied Mechanical Engineering at ETH Zurich, where his interest in product development methods was sparked while pursuing his bachelor’s and semester thesis at pd|z (Product Development Group Zurich). His research evolves around methods to accelerate and simplify the development of Internet of Things (IoT) applications as well as new ways to gain added value from automatically collected data.

Dr. Paula Macarena Abdala is a senior scientist and lecturer in the Laboratory of Energy Science and Engineering. The lab's research areas include (i) sustainable electricity generation (e.g. post-​combustion CO₂ separation, chemical looping combustion, biomass, generation of ultra-​pure hydrogen), (ii) heterogeneous catalysis (e.g. reforming, CO₂ hydrogenation, dehydrogenation) and (iii) fundamentals of multi-​phase granular systems using experimental techniques such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and numerical approaches such as Discrete Element Modelling (DEM).

Prof. Edoardo Mazza is head of the Experimental Continuum Mechanics group. They develop novel techniques for experimental characterization and numerical simulation of the mechanical behavior of structures and materials. Optimization of functionality and long-term reliability is based on advanced models of deformation, microstructural damage and crack propagation. Applications include mechanical integrity analysis and lifetime prediction of high temperature components, soft elastomers, and parts made by additive manufacturing. Tissue engineered and synthetic implants are evaluated in terms of “mechanical biocompatibility”.

Prof. Dirk Mohr is head of the Chair of Artificial Intelligence in Mechanics and Manufacturing. His group aims to understand how structures fail, and then use this know-​how to design new materials and structures. In particular, they develop experimentally validated computational models for the design and manufacturing of lightweight materials and structures with exceptional failure resistance. An important part of their activities is the development of suitable material manufacturing processes and the production of prototype materials, for real-life applications.