D-ITET News Channel (EN)

Giray Yağlıkçı from the SAFARI Research Group headed by Prof. Onur Mutlu received the DSN-2025 William C. Carter PhD Dissertation Award in Dependability.

Among 90 exceptional researchers, Prof. Ursula Keller has been awarded a “Foreign Fellowship” of the Royal Society. The expert in Ultrafast Laser Physics is the only scientist from Switzerland to receive this honour this year.

The COMSEC group has won a Distinguished Paper Award at the 46th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in San Francisco. The group, headed by Prof. Kaveh Razavi, was recognized for their paper titled “Breaking the Barrier: Post-Barrier Spectre Attacks”. 

The annual ETH Zurich Quantum Hackathon was a full success. 130 students from across Europe spent a weekend at Hönggerberg campus, competing in challenges and networking with companies.

Bastian Korthauer and Michel Nagel, both PhD students a D-ITET, have won awards at the PCIM Conference 2025 in Nuremberg. Bastian Korthauer from Prof. Jürgen Biela's Laboratory for High Power Electronic Systems (HPE) won the “Best Paper Award” while Michel Nagel, student in the Advanced Power Semiconductor Laboratory (APS) headed by Prof. Ulrike Grossner, received the “Outstanding Presentation Award”.

Peter Lendway, PhD student in Prof. Mickaël Perrin’s group for Quantum Devices at Empa, was honoured at the annual SNSF competition. He received the first prize in the video category.

Prof. Lana Josipović has been awarded the Distinguished Reviewer Award at the ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS’25). Congratulations!

As a doctoral student at the Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), Shadi Nashashibi works on the interdisciplinary project e-Retina together with the University of Tübingen on retinal implants. In this interview, he explains his vision of innovative implants that are intended to enable people with retinal diseases to see with high spatiotemporal resolution in the future.

Prof. Gabriela Hug, Professor for Electric Power Systems, was interviewed by SRF for ‘Echo der Zeit’. Following the major blackout in Spain, she talks about possible reasons and the situation for Switzerland.

Prof. Juerg Leuthold, head of the Institute of Electromagnetic Fields, was interviewed for SRF 10vor10, a news programme on Swiss television. In his statement he clarifies how satellites could be used for communication in emergency sitations.

Rabea Rogge, who completed her master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, is back on earth after a four-day expedition with a SpaceX team.

Dr. Alessandro Novello, post-doc in the Integrated Devices, Electronics, And Systems (IDEAS) group led by Prof. Hua Wang, won the Hans-Eggenberger-Award 2024 for the outstanding results of his PhD research on record power density fully integrated power management circuits.

D-ITET researchers have taken a significant step towards advancing next-generation communication technologies by unveiling the electro-optical properties of lithium niobate (LN) and barium titanate (BTO). Their findings, published in Nature Materials, provide the first comprehensive characterization of these materials across an unprecedented frequency range.

Luc Imperiali, doctoral student in the Advanced Mechatronics Group, received a Best Paper Award for his paper "Comparative Analysis of Carbon Footprints and Material Usage of Solid-State Transformers and Low-Frequency-Transformer-Based MVac-LVdc Interfaces for High-Power EV Charging".

In collaboration with UT Austin, PhD candidate Manasa Kaniselvan from Nano-TCAD Group published an article in Nature Materials. The study investigates the origin of resistance switching in 2D materials, presenting findings which are of interest for nano-devices in applications in next-generation computer memory and communication technology.

Doctoral student Ataberk Olgun and postdoc Giray Yağlıkçı, both members of the Safari Research Group led by Prof. Onur Mutlu, were inducted into the HPCA Hall of Fame.

Dr Maksym Yarema has been promoted to Adjunct Professor. Maksym Yarema’s research takes place at the intersection of natural and engineering science, investigating the relationships between materials and performance. His mission is to combine chemistry and materials with electronics. 

Professor Christoph Studer has been promoted to Full Professor of Integrated Information Processing in the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. Christoph Studer’s research lies at the intersection of wireless communication, machine learning, digital signal processing, numerical optimisation and the design of integrated circuits.

Professor Taekwang Jang, currently Tenure Track Assistant Professor, has been promoted to Associate Professor of Analog and Mixed Signal Circuits. Taekwang Jang’s research focuses on the design of mixed analogue-digital circuits for miniaturised computer systems. He is especially interested in designing ultra low power circuit components used in miniaturised computer systems with a very limited energy budget, such as for wireless sensor nodes or in biomedical electronics.

Authors Yahya Can Tugrul, Abdullah Giray Yaglikci, Ismail Emir Yuksel, Ataberk Olgun, Oguzhan Canpolat, Nisa Bostanci, Mohammad Sadrosadati, Oguz Ergin, and Onur Mutlu, head of the SAFARI Research group, have won a Distinguished Artifact Award for their joint work "PaCRAM: Understanding RowHammer Under Reduced Refresh Latency: Experimental Analysis of Real DRAM Chips and Implications on Future Solutions".

Five years ago, the Center for Project-Based Learning (PBL) at D-ITET was launched with the goal of providing students with a hands-on, interdisciplinary education. Since its founding, the center has implemented numerous projects, developed new teaching formats, and built valuable collaborations with industry. Michele Magno, head of PBL, offers insights into its development, successes, and vision for the future.

Stefan Gloor, former Master's student, Patrick Jattke, doctoral student, and Prof. Kaveh Razavi, head of the COMSEC (Computer Security) group, have received the Best Paper Award at the 1st Microarchitectural Security Conference last week.

Emmet Murphy, doctoral student in the DYNAMO group headed by Prof. Lana Josipović, won the first place in the Machine Learning Contest for Chip Design with High-Level Synthesis (Prediction task), organized by AMD and UCLA.

Optica (formerly OSA), the society dedicated to promoting the generation, application, archiving and dissemination of knowledge in the science of light, awards Prof. Juerg Leuthold the 2025 Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize. Prof. Leuthold, head of the Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), is honored for pioneering plasmonics based devices and in particular developing broadband modulators and detectors with highest bandwidths.

Klaas Prüssmann is professor of Bioimaging and the head of the Institute for Biomedical Engineering (IBT). In this interview, he speaks about his mission to generate images from inside the human body and how he came to ETH Zurich rather accidentally.

Dr. Antonio Di Maio has received an Ambizione grant from SNF for his research project "Efficient Distributed Intelligent Applications in Mobile-Network Dynamics (eDIAMOND)". He will start at the Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory (TIK) on 1 September 2025.

ProTRR, the first principled in-DRAM mitigation against Rowhammer attacks, has been described in a paper published by Prof. Kaveh Razavi's COMSEC group. It has heavily influenced the design of follow-up work on secure mitigations in both academia and industry.

It is our pleasure to announce that the Editorial Board of the IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics (OJPEL) has awarded the paper entitled “Artificial Neural Network (ANN) Based Fast and Accurate Inductor Modeling and Design” (authors: Dr. Thomas Guillod, Dr. Pantelis Papamanolis, Prof. em. Dr. Johann W. Kolar) with the First-place Prize Paper Award for 2023.

Two projects with contributions from the Power Systems Laboratory (PSL), headed by Prof. Gabriela Hug, have won the Watt d'Or Award 2025.

Prof. Onur Mutlu, head of the SAFARI Research Group, has received the IEEE Computer Society 2025 Harry H. Goode Memorial Award for "seminal contributions to computer architecture research and practice, especially in memory systems".

In the Masoala Rainforest at Zoo Zurich, a state-of-the-art prototype developed by the Center for Project-Based Learning (PBL) is currently undergoing testing. This new device provides unprecedented and pivotal data for research on Goodman's mouse lemurs, one of the world's smallest lemur species.

The National Academy of Inventors announced the election of exceptional inventors into the 2024 Class of Fellows. The NAI Fellowship is the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors. 

The DISCO group’s "Banyan: Fast Rotating Leader BFT" has won the Best Paper Award at Middleware 2024. The paper demonstrates how to reduce the latency of modern blockchain protocols.

Students and alumni of D-ITET can now enter the study programme for the teaching diploma for Matura schools in mathematics more easily. With a focus on information technology or mathematics, all requirements can be obtained during the regular studies.

Prof. em. Dr. Johann Kolar has been awarded the IEEE Medal in Power Engineering 2025 sponsored by the IEEE Industry Applications, Industrial Electronics, Power Electronics, and Power & Energy Societies.

At the end of this semester, the best assistants were awarded the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award HS 2024. The winners are Lars Kröger (Analysis 1) und Alina Nekora (Physik 2 / Numerische Methoden).

Albert Gran Alcoz, Martin Strohmeier, Vincent Lenders, and Laurent Vanbever, Head of the Networked Systems Group, won the "CYD Award 2024 for outstanding publication" for their paper "Aggregate-Based Congestion Control for Pulse-Wave DDoS Defense".

Patch-IT, multi-sensor sensor nodes for continuous vital sign monitoring for sepsis detection in neonatal intensive care, has been selected among the best 100 projects as part of the Prototype for Humanity Initiative. The initiative aims to foster partnerships among sectors, institutions, and individuals, all working toward a better world where innovation is at the heart of comprehensive, sustainable development.

Prof. Lana Josipovic has been awarded the Best Reviewer Award at the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Computer-Aided Design. Congratulations!

Konstantinos Kanellopoulos, doctoral student in the SAFARI Research Group, joins the ACM SIGMICRO MICRO Hall of Fame. The MICRO Hall of Fame recognizes authors who have had eight or more papers published in MICRO. This year’s inductees were announced at MICRO 2024 during the awards ceremony.