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Laboratory for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Research Objective:
The design, development, implementation, and testing of
high-performance computational solutions for complex discrete
optimization problems in computational biology, especially those
arising in the reconstruction of evolution from molecular
data.
News (2009-present):
- November 10, 2009
Congratulations to Dr. Krister Swenson, who successfully defended
his dissertation this afternoon, in the presence of jury members
Profs. Babak Falsafi (EPFL, jury president), Anastasia Ailamaki (EPFL),
Marie-France Sagot (U. Lyon and INRIA), David Sankoff (U. Ottawa),
and Bernard Moret. The jury unanimously nominated the work for the
annual EPFL Dissertation Award.
- October 2009
Cristina Ghiurcuta has joined our lab, completing our team for this
coming academic year. All of us at the lab are involved in the
Advanced Algorithms course for this fall, Nishanth and Cristina
taking the course, Bernard teaching it, and Vaibhav, Wei, Xiuwei,
Yann, and Yu working as TAs for it.
- September 2009
New faces, and missing old friends... Oana Jurj completed her summer
in our lab and returned to Timisoara, where she will start her MS
program; she leaves behind many friends and will be missed.
Krister Swenson left for Canada to start his postdoctoral studies
with David Sankoff at the University of Ottawa (and with Anne Bergeron
at the University of Montreal). We are all desolate -- Krister made
a lot of friends, had assumed quiet leadership in the lab, and had been
working with Bernard Moret since 2002 in New Mexico (learning how to
rock climb with him). We are also very proud of what Krister has
achieved and looking forward to continue working with him.
He will return for 10 days in early November for the formal defense of
his Ph.D. and suitable festivities!
Fortunately, in this time of separation, we were delighted to welcome
Nishanth Nair to our lab. Nishanth arrived on Sept. 14 and is already
a familiar figure in the lab. Cristina Ghiurcuta will arrive at the end
of the month and complete our new roster.
- July 2009
We are very happy to report that Cristina Ghiurcuta and Nishanth Nair
will join the EPFL PhD program this fall and work in our lab.
Cristina is completing her MS at the University of Timisoara
in Romania, while Nishanth finished his MS at the Indian Institute of
Science in Bangalore and is currently working for Microsoft Research.
We are looking forward to welcoming them both in the lab this fall.
- June 1, 2009
Ms. Oana Jurj joins our laboratory for a 3-month research summer;
she is finishing her degree at the University of Timisoara in
Romania and is interested in machine learning.
Open Positions:
We are always looking
for another great Ph.D. student.
Prerequisites for an RA position are a 4-year BS degree or MS degree
in Computer Science or an MS in any of Mathematics, Biology, Physics,
and related areas, with a strong background in computing and theory.
A predilection for theory, algorithm development, programming,
simulation, and testing is a big plus.
In order to join our laboratory, you must first be admitted to the
PhD program in Computer Science, called EDIC. You can find information,
details on the application procedure, and deadlines at the
EDIC website.
Please note that admission is very competitive; last year, we had
around 800 applicants to the program, for around 60 positions.
We also are happy to
discuss possible projects for MS students (I&C or Life
Sciences).
Please enquire directly with Prof. Moret.
Contact:
Send email to Professor Moret (bernard.moret@epfl.ch).
Technical
Notes:
This lab is a Microsoft-free zone -- all of our machines run Linux.
We are doing this for rather obvious technical as well as ethical
reasons, most of which are well documented in numerous sites
on the web.
(In particular, note that any documents sent to us in
Microsoft-proprietary formats, such as Word documents,
will be discarded without reading.)
For a humorous and fast-reading account of OS development,
as well as another take on the Microsoft empire and its
competition, you should definitely read "In The Beginning There
Was The Command Line", by Neal Stephenson (widely available online).
The pages on this site are best viewed with Mozilla (now called
Seamonkey) or any of its numerous derivatives, such as Iceape,
Camino, Epiphany, Firefox, Iceweasel, or Galeon), or Safari.
We are using two of Microsoft's open True Type fonts (Impact and
Trebuchet MS), which Microsoft's own IE, ironically, does not ender
well, especially at small sizes.
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