Meet the Speakers
Olivier Michielin
Head of the Department of oncology at Geneva University Hospital (HUG)
Prof. Olivier Michielin obtained a Masters of Physics in 1991 at EPFL and a Medical Degree from the University of Lausanne in 1997. He was appointed Group Leader of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics in 2002 and became an Assistant Professor at the Medical Faculty of Lausanne in 2004. In parallel, he trained as a medical oncologist and obtained his board certification in 2007 at the Department of oncology of the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) where he is currently heading the melanoma clinic before being appointed full Professor in 2019.
Prof. Michielin is mainly focused on translational oncology, developing new molecularly defined therapeutic approaches based on original bioinformatics techniques developed in his laboratory, as well as melanoma clinical trials at the Lausanne University Hospital.
Jacques Fellay
Professor of genomics and precision medicine at EPFL and CHUV, Chief Scientist at Health2030 Genome Center
Jacques Fellay is a medical doctor and researcher, with expertise in genomics and infectious diseases and strong interest in personalized health. He is the founding director of the Precision Medicine Unit of the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and leads a genomics laboratory at the EPFL School of Life Sciences. The aim of his research is to decipher the genetic basis of inter-individual differences in immunity and responses to infections. His group explores the role of human genetic variation in the host-pathogen battle, in the hope of shedding new light on basic biological mechanisms, and of paving the way toward more personalized approaches to health. He received multiple awards, including the National Latsis Prize in 2011 for his work on the genetic control of HIV and hepatitis C virus infections.
Stavroula Mougiakakou
Group Head, ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research, AI in Health and Nutrition Laboratory, University of Bern
Stavroula G. Mougiakakou is an Associate Professor and holds a Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. Since 2008 she has been affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine, University of Bern, and Head of the AI in Health and Nutrition Laboratory at the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research Bern, Switzerland.
Her current research interests include AI, ML, computer vision, and advanced data analysis to improve health by providing solutions for better diagnosis, personalized treatment, and dietary assessment. She has published over 70 papers in international peer-reviewed scientific journals and has served as an Associate Editor in several journals in her field.
Dr. Mougiakakou is a member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, the IEEE Computer Society, and the Swiss Society of Biomedical Engineering.
Nadia Terranova
Head of Quantitative Pharmacology Advanced Data Analytics, Merck
Dr. Nadia Terranova is a Biomedical engineer by training with a Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, currently serving as the Head of Advanced Data Analytics in Quantitative Pharmacology at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt (EMD Serono, US), where she joined in 2013.
Dr. Terranova’s contributions to the scientific community and to Merck’s R&D organization range from impactful systems pharmacology modeling, Pharmacometrics, and applications of advanced Machine Learning techniques to complex and multivariate drug development problems across oncology, immuno-oncology, and multiple sclerosis programs. Dr. Terranova is the leading author of several papers in selected journals and in international conference proceedings. She is PAGE Lewis Sheiner Awardee, the Vice-Chair of the ASCPT Pharmacometrics & Pharmacokinetics Steering Committee, and a member of the CPT Editorial Board and JPKPD Editorial Advisory Board.
Jens Selige
Managing Director, The LOOP Zurich
Jurgi Camblong
Co-Founder & CEO, SOPHiA GENETICS
Dr. Jurgi Camblong is an entrepreneur pioneering the Data-Driven Medicine movement around the world. He is a Molecular Biologist (published in Cell, Science & Nature), has a Ph.D. in Life Sciences from the University of Geneva, and an EMBA in Management of Technology from EPFL/HEC Lausanne. In 2011, he founded SOPHiA GENETICS with Dr. Pierre Hutter and Prof. Lars Steinmetz and has since successfully been leading the development of the company, listed by the MIT Technology Review amongst the 50 smartest companies. Dr. Camblong is a member of the Advisory Council on Digital Transformation to the Swiss Federal Government and was personally recognized by EY as Emergent Entrepreneur of the Year.
Silvia Quarteroni
Head of Innovation, SDSC
Silvia holds an MSc in Computer Science from EPFL and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of York, UK. She has been a senior research fellow at the University of Trento and later at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Here, she had the chance to work 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, whose AI department she helped create and expand. Silvia joined the SDSC in 2019 and is currently its Head of Innovation, in charge of the team leading organizations to digital transformation.
Olivier Verscheure
Founder & Executive Director, Swiss Data Science Center, EPFL & ETH Zürich
Olivier Verscheure received his Ph.D. degree in computer science from EPFL in 1999. After joining the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in New York as a member of the research staff, Olivier managed the Exploratory Stream Analytics research group. Since 2016, Olivier is the Executive Director of the Swiss Data Science Center. His current research interests include stream and big data mining, geospatial analysis, and large-scale data management applied to various sectors including personalized Health and Medicine, Environment and Renewable Energies, Digital Society and Large-Scale Infrastructures. Olivier received two IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards, published nearly 100 research papers garnering over 2,400 citations – two of which were awarded Best Paper – has invented more than 40 US and international patents, chaired major international technical conferences and workshops in his research areas and served on PhD committees in major universities.