The "Magistrale" crowns the founder of Yahoo
The Magistrale 2010 took place in the marquee installed on the Place Cosandey. In one of the highlights of the ceremony, Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, received a doctorat honoris causa from his former teacher, Giovanni de Micheli, who is now a researcher at EPFL.
Among the 3000 people assembled under the marquee were 626 new graduates of EPFL. The school invested a lot of energy to create an exceptional event for those graduating this year. To mark this important occasion, the Magistrale certainly aimed high!
The ceremony also featured performances by the Krilati troup.
The Polyspheres, awarded by the students to their favorite teachers, were presented to several recipients, including Libero Zupirolli, who received the Gold Polysphere 2010.
The first doctorat honoris causa was awarded to Shirley Jackson, President of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In 1973, she was front-page news as the first african american woman to become a Doctor at MIT. She is an academic reference in the United States, where she is a member of some of the most important scientific commissions.
Pierre-Louis Lions received the second honoris causa. This French mathematician and teacher at the Ecole Polytechnique de Paris received the Fields medal in 1994 and presides the board of governors of the Ecole normale supérieure.
Lastly, the final honoris causa was awarded to Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!. Giovanni de Micheli, his former teacher at Stanford and now scientist at EPFL, presented him with his award.
The Alumni Awards, which acknowledge the exceptional careers of former EPFL graduates, were presented to Philippe Petitpierre, Director-General of Holdigaz, and Christophe Beck, Executive Vice-President of Ecolab.
Among the research prizes were:
- The International Latsis Foundation prize, awarded to Canto Alvarez Carlos, for “major contributions to the identification of determinant mechanisms in metabolic adaptation to energy stress”.
- The Dimitris N. Chorafas Foundation Prize, awarded to Christopher Towne, for “the refinement of innovative strategies in genetic therapy for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis”.
- The Asea Brown Boveri Prize, awarded to Korada Satish Babu, for “his contribution to the field of low-complexity algorithms applied to the transmission and compression of data”.
- The DuPont Materials Prize, awarded to Aude Hauert, for “a new model of stochastic rupture, which predicts the properties and potential of new inorganic composites”.
- The Professor René Wasserman Prize, awarded to Denis Favez, for “an exceptional contribution to the assembling of different materials by laser soldering”.
- The EPFL Doctorate Prize, awarded to Effrosyni Kokiopoulou, for “his remarkable thesis project concerning the representation, analysis and classification of visual signals based on geometrical concepts”, and to Alexander Eigenbrod for “having used the phenomenon of the gravitational lens to observe a far-off, super-massive black hole, and having thereby obtained the most accurate measurement so far of the distribution of energy around a black hole”.
- The Ville de Lausanne Prize, awarded to Jonas Kühn, for “having presented new solutions for improving the Digital Holographic Microscopy technique”.
- The Rodolphe et Renée Haenny Foundation Prize, awarded to Véronique Michaud, for “her original contributions to the use of composite materials and intelligent materials for high-technology applications”.
- The Foundation Crédit Suisse Prize, awarded to Martin Odersky, for “his strong commitment to training at EPFL, and the development of the SCALA computing language”.