Join our online information to get to know the EPFL SRVC executive program for Transforming Business with AI & Data Tech (CAS in Value Chain Data Technologies) with Executive Director Ms. Elaine Moran.
\r\n
\r\nLearn how this program empowers professionals to drive sustainable innovation with AI, IoT & Digital Twins - and get all your questions answered.
\r\n
\r\n> Register here
Introduction to microcontroller programming, communications, analog circuits, and more!
","image_description":"","creation_date":"2026-09-28T13:24:46","last_modification_date":"2026-09-28T13:57:42","link_label":"","link_url":"","canceled":"False","cancel_reason":"","place_and_room":"CM 1 5","url_place_and_room":"https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==CM%201%205","url_online_room":"","spoken_languages":["https://memento.epfl.ch/api/v1/spoken_languages/1/?format=json","https://memento.epfl.ch/api/v1/spoken_languages/2/?format=json"],"speaker":"Olive PetroffInnovation Forum for Regenerative Agriculture & Viticulture is back for year 2, in collaboration with Changins.
\r\n
\r\nMeasuring Nature at Work: From Soil Life to Regenerative and Resilient Agriculture
\r\n
\r\nThis event will spotlight innovative startup solutions and pilot projects accelerating the transition to regenerative agriculture.
\r\nIt will also ignite discussions on the financial, regulatory, and structural shifts required to scale these innovations and align stakeholders around shared economic and environmental goals.
\r\n
\r\nWhat to expect:\r\n
In this talk, I'll take a look at three \"microbial vignettes\". In the first, I'll examine how the presence of co-habiting microbes profoundly affects the biology of a human pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This is important, because in diseased human airways - where P. aeruginosa is an unwelcome, but common inhabitant - the pathogen invariably shares the infection site with a variety of other microbes. It turns out that these microbial neighbours interact with one another and that these interactions are perturbed by the loss of a quorum sensing \"master regulator\" (LasR) in P. aeruginosa. In the second \"short\", I'll talk about how we are now able to manipulate the rate of evolution of the organism, either by \"stepping on the gas pedal\" or by \"slamming on the brakes\". The ability to do this, in an experimentally-controlled manner, is allowing us to access some novel evolutionary trajectories, and to address some truly fundamental biological questions. Finally, I'll take a fresh look at bacterial biofilms and in particular, examine whether the exopolysaccharide \"bioglue\" that holds these structures together might have additional - possibly more important roles. It turns out that it does, and that the exopolysaccharide matrix acts as a \"net\" to selectively sequester secreted proteins, potentially conferring novel functionalities on the biofilm.
\r\n
\r\nBrief Speaker Bio.
\r\nAfter reading for a degree in Biochemistry at the University of Oxford, Martin completed a PhD on bacterial chemotaxis at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), where he was awarded the Wolf Prize for his contributions to the field. Leavuing Israel with a PhD and a [German] wife, he then moved to Toulouse (supported by a long-term EMBO fellowship) where he learned the dark art of x-ray crystallography and solved the structure of a signaling complex involved in bacterial chemotaxis. He then moved back to the UK to take up a post-doctoral position at the University of Cambridge working on quorum sensing in the fascinating plant pathogen, Pectobacterium atrosepticum. There, he developed skills in molecular genetics and demonstrated (for the first time) that quorum sensing molecules bind directly to their cognate LuxR homologs in a range of bacteria. This advance allowed him to secure a Royal Society University Research Fellowship to start his own group - where he learned the hard way that prospective students don't like any project with the word \"plant\" in, and when offered projects on the plant pathogen versus a mammalian pathogen, always went for the latter. Since around 2000, his team's focus has been on understanding better the link between metabolism and virulence in the opportunistic human pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. He is now Professor of Microbial Physiology and Metabolism at the University of Cambridge.
In migrating cells, the GTPase Rac organizes a protrusive front, whereas Rho organizes a contractile back, yet how these GTPases segregate remains unclear. We leverage optogenetics, mechanical perturbations, and modeling to reveal a mechanochemical long-range mutual activation between front and back polarity programs that complements their known local mutual inhibition. Rac-driven protrusions increase membrane tension, triggering mTORC2-dependent Rho activation at the opposite side of the cell. Conversely, Rho-mediated contractility induces cortical-flow regulation of phosphoinositide signaling, promoting distal Rac activation. Our findings demonstrate how the actin cortex and plasma membrane interact as an integrated mechanochemical system for long-range Rac-Rho patterning. Efficient migration also requires polarized organization of the cell interior, with organelle positioning increasingly recognized as a key determinant of cell movement. Yet how this organization is established remains unclear. Building on our mechanochemical framework, we now investigate how actin-generated forces position organelles during migration and how disruption of this intracellular organization contributes to disease.
\r\n
\r\nWebsite of the De Belly lab: https://cri.utsw.edu/faculty/henry-de-belly/
\r\n
\r\nThis is part of the Physics of Living Systems monthly symposium: https://pols.epfl.ch/physics-of-living-systems-seminars/monthly-symposium/
In all professions including academic careers, satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment are not always at hand, leading sometimes to questioning professional choices. Have you experienced not being completely sure of what is professionally right for you? Have you wondered how you could find it out? Do you feel you might be not well equipped to decide on the next step in your career, or to lack orientation? In this workshop, you will be provided with tools and orientation models that will guide you in your career decisions, and implement them. These are based on an authenticity-oriented perspective aiming at a fulfilling work and self-realization experience.
","image_description":"","creation_date":"2026-07-14T11:21:21","last_modification_date":"2026-07-14T11:23:17","link_label":"Website","link_url":"https://foster-lead-promote.ch/our_services/coachinggroups/","canceled":"False","cancel_reason":"","place_and_room":"EPFL","url_place_and_room":"","url_online_room":"","spoken_languages":["https://memento.epfl.ch/api/v1/spoken_languages/2/?format=json"],"speaker":"Afi Sika KuzeawuIn 2026, EPFL named Professor Konstantin Novoselov its first-ever EPFL Fellow, a newly created honorary title recognising scientific personalities of exceptional international stature.
\r\n
\r\nEPFL is delighted to host a public lecture to celebrate this nomination of one of the most influential physicists of our time.
\r\n
\r\nKonstantin Novoselov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 and is globally renowned for his pioneering work on graphene and two-dimensional materials. By isolating graphene for the first time, a sheet of carbon just one atom thick, he opened an entirely new field of research, with profound implications for electronics, energy and quantum technologies.
\r\n
\r\nPicture this: it was from the graphite of an ordinary pencil lead that this \"super-material\" was first isolated. Using nothing more than a piece of adhesive tape to peel away a layer a single atom thick, Konstantin Novoselov revealed to the world a material with extraordinary properties. A million times thinner than a human hair, 200 times stronger than steel and remarkably conductive, graphene pushes every limit. From the lead of your pencil to the batteries of tomorrow, join us to discover how a deceptively simple gesture set off a genuine technological revolution.
\r\n
\r\nThis Campus Lecture offers an introduction to that revolution: how a two-dimensional material is transforming our understanding of matter and how today's fundamental discoveries become tomorrow's technologies.
\r\n
\r\nAbout Konstantin Novoselov
\r\nKonstantin Novoselov is a physicist specialising in condensed matter and nanotechnology. He conducted his Nobel Prize–winning research at the University of Manchester, where, together with Professor Andre Geim, he isolated graphene for the first time. He has held academic positions in the United Kingdom as well as internationally and is currently based at the National University of Singapore. Widely recognised as a leading figure in the study and application of two-dimensional materials, he has received numerous honours for his contributions to science.
How social robots look, behave, and offer support should reflect the people and environments they encounter. Drawing on studies with older adults in rural Indiana and urban Houston, this talk examines how individual needs, preferences, everyday surroundings, and care relationships can inform the physical forms and interaction styles of future social robots.
\r\n
\r\nThrough participatory design, observations, and interviews, I center older adults’ perspectives on meaningful support, acceptable interaction, and personal boundaries. Encounters with robot companions have brought moments of enjoyment, surprise, and support, while revealing challenges involving communication, expectations, privacy, and control. I explore how embodiment, movement, voice, and interaction pacing shape these experiences, and how caregivers can support engagement while preserving older adults’ choices and dignity.
\r\n
\r\nThese findings inform design requirements for robots that people can understand, guide, and adjust as their circumstances change. I connect them to opportunities for adaptive robot behavior, accessible interaction, and shared control, including how robots might recognize when assistance is welcome and make their actions easier to interpret or interrupt. The talk positions older adults as active contributors to robotics research, whose lived expertise can shape both future robot companions and the broader systems of support surrounding them.
\r\n
\r\n
\r\nBiography
\r\nChorong Park, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor and Presidential Frontier Faculty at the University of Houston’s Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design, where she leads the Empathetic Lifespan AI & Robotics for Aging (ELARA) Lab. Her research connects human–robot interaction, human-centered AI, and participatory design to develop social robots and supportive technologies with older adults and caregivers.
\r\n
\r\nDrawing on studies in rural Indiana and urban Houston, she investigates how robots’ physical forms and interactions can fit older adults’ needs, surroundings, and everyday lives. Her work centers older adults’ perspectives on companionship, support, privacy, personal boundaries, and dignity, including how caregiver involvement can preserve individual choice and control.
\r\n
\r\nHer research is informed by more than 500 hours of volunteer technology support with older adults and people with disabilities and has appeared at ACM CHI, ACM ASSETS, and IEEE robotics venues. She earned her Ph.D. in Technology, with a graduate minor in Gerontology, and her master’s degree in UX Design from Purdue University.
\r\n
\r\nFurther information:
\r\nUniversity of Houston research feature
\r\n(https://stories.uh.edu/2026-ai-robots-for-older-adults/index.html)
\r\nELARA Lab website
\r\n(https://elaralab.org/)
\r\n
How can we meaningfully interpret neuronal calcium imaging data? Calcium imaging is one of the key methods used to record neuronal activity from the brain of animals. I will outline why the interpretation of calcium signals remains a major bottleneck in understanding neuronal activity and plasticity. I will trace the origins of this problem and how partial solutions have been provided by my own and by others' work, and how these issues are affected by recording conditions and different calcium indicators (e.g., OGB-1, GCaMP6, GCaMP8). I will propose a conceptual path forward that could make calcium imaging a more powerful tool than it currently is.
\r\n
Generative AI has become a part of students' everyday working life. If used without guidance, GenAI can cause over-reliance and leave students with a distorted sense of what they have actually learned. Most research and practice have focused on how we can scaffold students' GenAI use, for example through prompts, guardrails, or redesigned tasks. This talk asks a simpler question that has received far less attention. When should students be allowed to use AI so that it helps their learning?
\r\n
\r\nIn this lunch&LEARN session, Janne Rotter turns to a question that's been largely overlooked: not how, but when should students be allowed to use AI for it to actually support learning? Janne will present findings from a study of 105 university students comparing three conditions: unrestricted AI access, no access at all, and a \"timed\" condition where students could only turn to AI after first attempting the task on their own.
\r\n
\r\nDrawing on multiple pedagogical theories to build a decision rule for when access should open up, the results show that students in the timed condition outperformed those with unrestricted access on an objective post-test, and had a more accurate sense of their own understanding, without an explicit metacognitive prompting. Compared to withholding AI entirely, timed access also seemed to reduce task errors and time spent on task.
\r\n
\r\nJoin us to learn more about the topic and engage in further discussion.
\r\n