THE IMPTOX TEAM
HES-SO
Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse occidentale
HES-SO is the largest University of Applied Sciences (UAS) in Switzerland. With its more than 21,000 students and a broad network of schools located in 7 cantons, it is the second largest higher education institution in the country.
HES-SO is organised in six faculties: Design & Visual Arts, Business Management & Services, Engineering & Architecture, Music & Performing Arts, Health, and Social Work. Education and research are oriented towards practical applications in those six areas. HES-SO offers a large variety of education programmes: 46 Bachelor and 25 Master degrees as well as 265 continuing education courses. It employs more than 10,000 collaborators, with approximately 900 full-time employees dedicated to research and development activities. Strongly anchored in the regional economy, HES-SO collaborates closely with SMEs, and its R&D also extends to certain aspects of industrial-scale production. HES-SO undertakes research projects in collaboration with a wide range of partners in Switzerland and abroad. HES-SO has been involved in European Framework Programmes since 1998.
In Imptox, HES-SO will be represented by the Haute École d’ingénierie et de gestion de Vaud (HEIG-VD), through the Computational Intelligence for Computational Biology group of the Institut des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (IICT). This research group focuses on the development of computational and artificial intelligence methods and on their application to data-intensive problems in life sciences and biomedical research. Its particular role in Imptox will be the following: HES-SO will lead tasks related to the development and the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence for the study of micro- and nano-plastics, including but not limited to image-based recognition and characterization, quantification of effects, bioinformatics and computational biology.
Carlos Peña
holds a PhD in Computer Sciences. He has 20 years of experience in developing computational intelligence methods and their application in the life sciences and biomedical research. At the IICT/HEIG-VD, he leads, since 2007, the Computational Intelligence for Computational Biology (CI4CB) group and the Institute’s Biomedical Applications domain since 2015. He is also an affiliated group leader at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB).
Shabnam Ataee
holds a PhD in Information Systems. She is a data scientist with experience in data analysis, applied machine learning, and deep learning in academia and industry. She also has a solid background in agile software design and development using Python and its scientific libraries.
Xavier Brochet
holds a PhD in Bioinformatics and is a senior bioinformatician with over 13 years of experience. He has significant experience in public research and in working in multidisciplinary teams (biology and computer science). He holds expertise in bioinformatics, immunoinformatics, advanced knowledge in data analysis, applied machine learning and project management. He has also solid skills in creating information systems and developing bioinformatics analysis tools, software, and web interfaces.