Enabling data-driven science & innovation for societal impact

Prof. Olivier Verscheure is the director and founder of the Swiss Data Science Center (SDSC). Olivier also co-leads a joint training program between EPFL and HEC Lausanne, specifically designed for senior executives. Since 2018, Olivier has been a member of the Board of Directors of Lonza, a global leader in the life sciences sector. This company provides products and services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and specialized healthcare industries.Olivier began his career at IBM Research after earning his Ph.D. in computer science from EPFL. He held several research and leadership positions at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in New York and co-created and co-directed the IBM Research center in Dublin, Ireland, before joining the EPFL in 2016.

Alessandro joined the SDSC in March 2019 as a data scientist focused on industry collaborations. His mission is to support corporates in leveraging the power of their data by adopting analytical approaches and data-centric solutions. His background is in biomedical engineering, with a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Tübingen. Before joining the center, he worked as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, at the EPFL Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience in Geneva, and as data scientist for a private ecommerce company.

Valerio started his career working for 7 years as a particle-physics researcher at CERN. In 2016, he moved to consulting, applying data science in several industries. First, he joined the Quant team of Ernst & Young in Geneva. Later, he created his own company, SamurAI sàrl, providing consulting services for his clients. He also has a passion for teaching very complex subjects in simple terms. That is why he particularly enjoys offering training programs to private companies and universities. Valerio joined the SDSC in May 2022 as a Principal Data Scientist with the mission of accompanying industrial partners and other institutions through their data science journey.

Roberto holds an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Particle Physics from the University of Torino, Italy. He has worked for several years in fundamental research as a senior fellow and data scientist at the CERN Experimental Physics division and on a research project supported by the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS). In 2018 he moved to EPFL to work on data mining and Machine Learning techniques for the built environment and renewable energies. He has started and led multiple collaborations with academic and industry partners in the energy domain. Roberto joined the SDSC in September 2021 as a Principal Data Scientist with the mission of accompanying industries, NGOs and international organizations through their data science journey.

Silvia holds an MSc in Computer Science from EPFL and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of York, UK. She has been a senior research fellow at the University of Trento and later at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Here, she had the chance to work on Marie Curie and ERC projects relating to natural language processing. From 2012 to 2019, she was a Senior Manager and NLP expert at ELCA Informatique Switzerland, whose AI department she helped create and expand. Silvia joined the Swiss Data Science Center in 2019 and is currently its Chief Transformation Officer, in charge of the team leading organizations to digital transformation.