Attracting the brightest minds for the future

Professor Rüdiger Urbanke © 2021 EPFL
In September, Professor Rüdiger Urbanke succeeds Jim Larus as Dean of EPFL’s School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC). After handing over to Urbanke, Larus will remain at EPFL and is looking forward to getting back to research.
Professor Rüdiger Urbanke obtained his Dipl. Ing. degree from the Vienna University of Technology in 1990. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the United States and gained his M.Sc. and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 1992 and 1995, respectively. After then joining the Mathematics of Communications Department at Bell Labs for four years, he arrived at EPFL in 1999.
Did you have a ‘Eureka moment’ - when you knew you wanted to work in the computer science field?
I didn’t have a specific Eureka moment but electrical engineering, and in particular communications, seemed interesting and useful; so did math, physics, and computer science. Electrical engineering had the added advantage that I couldn’t study it in my home town, Linz, but I “had to" go to Vienna, which I loved. I had a very vague idea what it was about and I do recall that I was worried that I might not pass, since I am partially color blind, and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to read the color codes on resistors correctly. It turns out I was never asked to do this! In the end, everything worked out wonderfully and I have ended up in a school that combines communications and computer science which suits my research perfectly.
What do your new role and the IC School mean to you?
The only thing that really matters in the end are people. I see my role as helping people in IC to succeed, shielding them if necessary and perhaps, most importantly, to attract the brightest, most creative, and most motivated minds for the future (students, faculty and staff). I have tremendously benefitted from the collegial and stimulating environment inside IC and I hope that the next generation has the same experience. As the name suggests, IC combines computer science and communications, something that is very rare. This makes us extremely well positioned for the challenges that lie ahead. Today machine learning is king, tomorrow it might be quantum or the fascinating problems at the interface to SV.
Of all the work you’ve done, what makes you the most proud?
When you think about a problem for a very long time and suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the puzzle pieces align, these are rare but exceptional moments of bliss. Once in a while I walk out of a class room and the whole lecture had a natural flow to it with all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed and then I am very happy. I am in particular proud when I see students of mine succeed.
You are well known for your bikes, can you explain?
I have more bicycles than can rationally be justified and I enjoy fixing them, as well as those of my colleagues and students. So far, I have not killed anybody and I hope to keep it that way!