D-BAUG Spotlight Seminar Series
The Spotlight Seminar Series brings highly successful and prominent female academics to ETH. It features women in engineering who are addressing key challenges of today.
Focus on Geospatial Modelling Challenges
25 June 2024
Prof. Somayeh Dodge, Department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Dr. Kristel Chanard, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France
Venue ETH Hönggerberg, HCI G3
Program
17.30 - 18.00 Seminar and Q&A with 1st speaker
18.00 - 18.30 Seminar and Q&A with 2nd speaker
18.30 - 19.00 Panel discussion with speakers and D-BAUG students
19.00 - 20.00 Apéro
Please external pageregister by 17 June.
Understanding human behavior and interaction through movement
Prof. Somayeh Dodge
Associate Professor of Spatial Data Science in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara
external pageProfessional website
Somayeh Dodge is an Associate Professor of Spatial Data Science in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is currently a Senior Fellow of the ETH/UZH Collegium Helveticum program and a Fellow of the University of Zurich Digital Society Initiative (DSI). She received her PhD in Geography with a specialization in Geographic Information Science (GIScience) from the University of Zurich, Switzerland in 2011. She is a recipient of the 2021 CAREER award from the U.S. Science National Foundation (NSF), and the 2022 Emerging Scholar Award of the Spatial Analysis and Modeling Specialty Group of the American Associations of Geographers (AAG). Somayeh's research focuses on developing data analytics, knowledge discovery, modeling, and visualization techniques to study movement behavior in dynamic human and ecological systems.
Realising the potential of geodesy to address water-related challenges
Dr. Kristel Chanard
Research Scientist, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France
external pageProfessional website
Kristel Chanard is a research scientist specializing in Geodesy and Geophysics at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France. She earned her PhD in Geophysics from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris in 2015. Her research lies at the intersection of geodesy, geophysics, and hydrology, contributing to the development of hydrogeodesy—a discipline that leverages geodetic observations to better understand changes in water availability and distribution. Recognized for her innovative contributions, she has been honored with the Geodesy Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award from the European Geosciences Union in 2022, the John Wahr Early Career Award from the American Geophysical Union in 2023, and the Bronze Medal from the French National Center for Scientific Research in 2024.
Previous Installments
Focus on civil engineering challenges
16 November 2023
Dr. Maria Laura Delle Monache, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Stavroula Kontoe, University of Patras, Greece
Venue ETH Hönggerberg, HCI G3
Program
17.30 - 18.00 Seminar and Q&A with 1st speaker
18.00 - 18.30 Seminar and Q&A with 2nd speaker
18.30 - 19.00 Panel discussion with speakers and D-BAUG students
19.00 - 20.00 Apéro
Please external pageregister by 9 November for the November Seminars.
The future of mobility: the quest for smart and sustainable transportation systems
Dr. Maria Laura Delle Monache
Assistant professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
external pageProfessional website
Maria Laura Delle Monache is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she was a research scientist at Inria in Grenoble, France (2016-2021) and a Postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University - Camden in USA (2014-2016). She received the B.Sc. degree from the university of L’Aquila (Italy), a joint M.Sc. degree from the University of L’Aquila (Italy) and the University of Hamburg (Germany), and the Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France in 2009, 2011, and 2014, respectively. She is a member of the Standing Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics of the Transportation Research Board and a member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Smart Cities. She was awarded the 2023 IEEE Technical Committee on Cyber-Physical System Mid-Career Award. Dr. Delle Monache’s research is focused on modeling and control for cyber-physical transportation systems. Her work is at the intersection of mathematics, control theory and transportation.
Seismic and blast loading on underground structures
Dr. Stavroula Kontoe
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, University of Patras Greece
external pageProfessional website
Stavroula Kontoe is Associate Professor at the external pageUniversity of Patras and Visiting Reader at external pageImperial College London. She holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (2001), an MSc in Soil Mechanics and Engineering Seismology (2002) and a PhD in Computational Geomechanics (2006) from Imperial College London. Following the completion of her studies she worked as a Lecturer (2006-2014), Senior Lecturer (2014-2019) and Reader in Soil Dynamics (2019-2022) at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Imperial College London. Her publication record includes more than 130 papers in topics related to geotechnical earthquake engineering, computational geomechanics and offshore geotechnics. She has been active as specialist consultant and as member of several International and National Committees (TC203 of ISSMGE, EEAE, IAEE), while she served as Chair of the UK Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics (SECED) for the period 2020-2022. She is currently Editor for Computers and Geotechnics and serves at editorial boards of other journals (SDEE, JEE).
Focus on environmental engineering challenges
27 September 2023
Dr. Anne van Loon, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Dr. Isabella Schalko, ETH Zurich and MIT
Drought in the Anthropocene
Dr. Anne van Loon
Associate Professor in Drought Risk, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, the Netherlands
external pageProfessional website
Anne Van Loon is a hydrologist and interdisciplinary drought risk scientist, interested in the relationship between water, people and the environment. Anne currently leads the interdisciplinary ERC project on drought-to-flood disasters (PerfectSTORM) and is involved in projects related to drought & flood management in southern Africa (Connect4WR), drought risk modelling in eastern Africa (DOWN2EARTH), optimising climate services for drought adaptation (I-CISK), and upscaling water storage in the Netherlands (UPWAS). Before starting at VU Amsterdam, Anne was a (Senior) Lecturer in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham (UK). She did a PhD and postdoc at Wageningen University on drought propagation and impacts, and worked at FutureWater on water management modelling.
Wood in rivers: hazards and benefits
Dr. Isabella Schalko
Junior Group Leader (SNSF Ambizione Fellow), Institute of Fluid Dynamics, ETH Zurich
Research Affiliate, Nepf Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
external pageProfessional website
Isabella Schalko received her PhD in 2018 from the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) at ETH Zurich and was awarded the ETH Medal for her doctoral thesis. After completing her PhD, Isabella was awarded an SNSF Early Postoc Mobility Fellowship to work as a Postdoc at the Nepf Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory at MIT. Prior to her SNSF Ambizione Fellowship, she worked as a Lecturer and Senior Research Assistant at VAW, ETH Zurich.
Isabella is a hydraulic engineer with expertise in environmental fluid mechanics. Her research aims to create a fundamental understanding of transport processes in fluvial systems to make a positive impact on the environment. She integrates physical modeling and field observations to study the interaction between flow and (in)organic matter in fluvial systems. The goal is to develop models of the physical processes to improve the management of natural resources and the design of hydraulic structures.