New deans for the Basic Sciences and Life Sciences

Paul Dyson, the new dean of the School of Basic Sciences

Paul Dyson joined the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at EPFL in 2002 as the head of the Laboratory of Organometallic and Medicinal Chemistry, and he chaired the Institute between 2008 and 2016. His research topics include the design and study of new organometallic drugs, the design of catalysts and the study of their mechanisms, and the design, properties and applications of ionic liquids. Prof. Dyson has won numerous prizes, including the Werner Prize of the Swiss Chemical Society in 2004, the Award for Outstanding Achievements in Bioorganometallic Chemistry in 2010, the Centennial Luigi Sacconi Medal of the Italian Chemical Society in 2011, the Bioinorganic Chemistry Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2015, the European Sustainable Chemistry Award of the European Chemical Society in 2018 and the Green Chemistry Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2020. He is also a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher and has an H-index >100 (Web of Science and Google Scholar). Over the years he has held visiting professorships at the University of Burgundy, Pierre and Marie Curie University, the University of Vienna, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Chimie Paristech and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He has been a member of the Research Council representing the Division of Mathematics, Natural and Engineering Sciences at the Swiss National Science Foundation since 2016.

Andy Oates, the new dean of the School of Life Sciences

Andy Oates joined the School of Life Sciences in 2016 as the head of the Timing, Oscillations, Pattern Lab. Prof. Oates is a highly innovative, world-renowned developmental biologist whose research focuses on oscillating genetic programs that trigger the development of embryonic body segments in a precisely defined time sequence. His interdisciplinary approach combining theoretical and systems biology, physics, computer modeling and quantitative imaging methods has enabled him to achieve widely acclaimed breakthroughs using zebrafish as his animal model. Before coming to EPFL, he held positions at the Max Planck Institute for Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, University College London and the Francis Crick Institute in London. Read our summer series article on Prof. Oates.