Sabine Süsstrunk appointed new IC School dean

Sabine Süsstrunk joined EPFL in 1999 and since 2014 has been head of the Images andVisual Representation Laboratory (IVRL). From 2015-2020, she was also the first Director of the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI) and Digital Humanities Section (SoDH), College of the Humanities (CdH).

She has a BS in Scientific Photography from ETH Zürich, an MS in Electronic Publishing from the Rochester Institute of Technology in the United States, and a PhD on computing chromatic adaptation from the University of East Anglia in the UK.

Her main research areas are in computational photography, computer vision, generative AI and computational aesthetics. Süsstrunk has authored and co-authored over 250 publications, of which 8 have received best paper/demo awards, and holds 10 patents.

In 2020, Süsstrunk was appointed president of the Swiss Science Council (SSC), she also co-founded the WISH Foundation (Women in Science and Humanities), which promotes women in science, she is a Board Member of the SRG SSR (Swiss Broadcasting Corporation), and the Swiss Study Foundation, and she also co-founded and sits on the board of Largo Films.

Süsstrunk will take up her new position on 1 September 2025, replacing Rüdiger Urbanke, under whose leadership the IC School has become the second largest school at EPFL by enrolment since celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2022.

The school has introduced joint master's programs in Neuro-X and quantum science, boosted its international reputation, taken the lead on major Swiss-wide initiatives in AI and hired top professors.

The IC School has also consolidated its research activities in quantum computing and life science through ambitious cross-disciplinary projects while at the same time helping shape the public debate on artificial intelligence and cyber security.