Martin Vetterli | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Former president of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) | |
| Born | (1957-10-04)4 October 1957 (age 68) |
| Alma mater | ETH Zurich Stanford University |
| Known for | Wavelets President of theÉcole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (2017-2024) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematical signal processing |
| Institutions | École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne |
| Doctoral advisor | Henri J. Nussbaumer |
| Doctoral students | Minh Do Jelena Kovačević Vivek Goyal Hyung Ju Park |
| Website | https://direction.epfl.ch/president |
Martin Vetterli is a professor ofengineering ofÉcole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) inSwitzerland, and was the former president of EPFL between 2017 and 2024.[1] He was also formerly the president of the National Research Council of theSwiss National Science Foundation.[2]
Martin Vetterli has made numerous research contributions in the general area ofdigital signal processing and is best known for his work onwavelets. He has also contributed to other areas, includingsampling (signal processing),computational complexity theory,signal processing for communications, digitalvideo processing and joint source/channel coding. His work has led to over 150 journal publications and to two dozen of patents.
Martin Vetterli received hiselectrical engineering degree fromETH Zurich in 1981, and then completed aMaster of Science degree in electrical engineering atStanford University in 1982. He later pursued hisPhD atEPFL in 1986.
After his dissertation, he was an assistant and associate professor in electrical engineering atColumbia University inNew York, and in 1993, he became an associate and then full professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at theUniversity of California at Berkeley inCalifornia.
In 1995, he joinedEPFL as a full-time professor. He held several positions there, including chair of communication systems and founding director of the National Competence Center in Research on Mobile Information and Communication systems (NCCR-MICS).
From 2004 to 2011, he was vice president ofEPFL for international affairs and, from 2011 to 2012, he was the dean of the School of Computer and Communications Sciences atEPFL.
In 2015, he was elected to theUnited States National Academy of Engineering as an International Member for his contributions to the development of time-frequency representations and algorithms in multimedia signal processing and communications.[3]
From 2013 to 2016 he was the president of the National Research Council of theSwiss National Science Foundation, before being elected as the president ofEPFL inSwitzerland.[4]
He is also responsible for developing, publishing and maintaining an extensivemassive open online course on the basics ofdigital signal processing. The course is a collaboration effort between him and his colleague, Paolo Prandoni. The course was first offered in February 2013 onCoursera and has been offered every year on the site since then. Each session runs for 10 weeks.[5][6]
Martin Vetterli works in the areas ofelectrical engineering,computer science andapplied mathematics. His work coverswavelets and applications, image and video compression (data compression), self-organized communications systems andsensor networks, as well as fast algorithms.[7]
At the core of his laboratory's current research is mathematical signal processing, that is, the set of tools and algorithms from applied harmonic analysis that are central to signal processing. These include representations for signals (Fourier, wavelets, frames), sampling theory, and sparse representations.
A main application of signal processing is in communications and sensor networks. In addition to important classic topics like channel estimation and equalization, multiuser systems like sensor networks are of great interest. This leads to distributed compression, sampling, and modeling of physical phenomena.
The area of audio processing and digital acoustics deals with multi-channel acquisition, processing and rendering of audio signals. This includes questions of sound field sampling, synthesis and perception.
Inverse problems and tomography are key signal processing tasks where state of the art techniques have high potential impact. In particular, the project on ultrasound tomography intends to solve a long-standing quest for a safe and affordable breast cancer screening method.
In the area of image/video processing and applications, his research has on-going projects in image acquisition, image representations, and super-resolution imaging. Applications include image annotation and augmented reality for mobile devices.
The eFacsimile research project, sponsored byGoogle, is focused on the research and development of a new acquisition, representation and rendering paradigm for the high-quality reproduction of artwork.
The research of Martin Vetterli has led to about 150 journal papers and resulted also in about two dozen patents that led to technology transfers to high-tech companies and the creation of several start-ups.[8]
Martin Vetterli is a co-author of the bookWavelets and Subband Coding (Prentice-Hall, 1995).[9] In 2008, Vetterli authored with Paolo Prandoni a free textbookSignal Processing for Communications.[10]
In 2014, another book with the titleFoundations of Signal Processing (coauthored byJelena Kovačević andVivek Goyal) was also published freely accessible.[11]
On 1 January 2017, Martin Vetterli became theEPFL's fifth president. The priorities of his direction team includeopen science,computational thinking andsustainability.[12] Starting 1 January 2025, theSwiss Federal Council appointedAnna Fontcuberta i Morral as the sixth President of EPFL for a 4-year term, succeeding Martin Vetterli. She is the first woman to hold the position.[13]
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