Executive Office
The Executive Office is responsible for the management of the center and its activities in research, education, outreach and communication.
Together with the Steering Committee, the executive office of ETH AI Center develops and implements the strategy of the center and builds strategic partnerships and collaborations. It is the central hub for facilitating exchange between members and external partners from academia, industry, start-ups, and government.
Operations
PD Dr. Alexander Ilic
Executive Director
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PD Dr. Alexander Ilic is the Executive Director and a co-founder of the ETH AI Center. He completed his habilitation at University of St. Gallen (HSG), holds a PhD from ETH Zurich, and a MSc from TU Munich. He was named twice "Entrepreneur of the Year" and won several entrepreneurship prizes including the Swiss Economic Award.
Letizia Turri
Chief of Staff
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Letizia is the Chief of Staff at the ETH AI Center. She holds a CEMS MSc in International Management from ESADE and NUS. She has worked with the Impact Team at UBS and at Merantix in Berlin’s AI venture capital ecosystem. Previously, she collaborated with Google in Singapore and gained experience in the Barcelona startup scene.
Natalia Marciniak
Operations Manager
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Natalia Marciniak is the Operations Manager at ETH AI Center. Her approach is to cultivate good relationships with everyone, and in that way to foster a cooperative environment. She thinks that this is the key to the success of big organisations, and also the prerequisite to have a pleasant and constructive working life.
Flori Olteanu
Finance Manager
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Flori is the Finance Manager at the ETH AI Center. She studied Finance at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies. After her studies, she moved to Munich and worked in administration at the Ludwig Maximilian University. She further developed her career at St Cross College, University of Oxford, where she supported several administrative departments and also managed the Events Office.
Giulia Rivino
Fellowship Programs Coordinator
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Giulia is the Fellowship Programs Coordinator at the ETH AI Center. After her studies in Education and HR management, she focused her career on continuous learning projects both in companies and universities. Her experience at SDA Bocconi School of Management reinforced her passion for the education sector, as she had the opportunity to select talents for highly specialized postgraduate programs. She loves working in an international environment and is committed to promoting a dynamic and cooperative learning atmosphere.
Trinh Ngo
Office & Community Manager
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Trinh Ngo holds the position of Office and Community Manager at the ETH AI Center. She earned her Master's Degree in Management and Economics from the University of Zurich. With over 3 years of experience in event coordination and community management, she is deeply committed to fostering a collaborative working environment and cultivating an active research community at the ETH AI Center.
Dr. Imanol Schlag
Technical Lead for Large Language Model Development at Swiss AI Initiative
Imanol Schlag is co-leading the Swiss AI Initiative's Large Language Model effort with Professors from EPFL. Before joining the ETH AI Center he was a PostDoc at ETH and a PhD student at USI/IDSIA. His doctoral research focused on Artificial Intelligence via connectionist models, encompassing innovative, scalable neural network designs. Some of these were created during his time at Microsoft, Google, and Meta.
Dr. Manuel Kaufmann
Technical Lead for Human-Centric Multi-Modal Data Acquisition
Dr. Manuel Kaufmann is a tech lead for human-centric multi-modal data acquisition. He holds a PhD and MSc in Computer Science from ETH Zurich, with a focus on human-centric Computer Vision. In his doctoral thesis he developed methods for 3D human performance capture from body-worn sensors and worked on human motion modelling.
Dr. Arnout Devos
Academic Program Manager
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Dr. Arnout Devos is the Academic Program Manager at ETH AI Center and a Scientific Coordinator at ELLIS. He holds a PhD from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), where he worked on few-shot machine learning research and innovation, including time at Amazon and Spotify. He has received several awards for his work, including a Marie Curie doctoral fellowship and an EPFL Computer Science Teaching Assistant award.
Entrepreneurship
Dr. Ann-Lauriene Schumacher
Entrepreneurship Manager
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Dr. Ann-Lauriene Haag is the Entrepreneurship Manager at the ETH AI Center. With over 10 years of experience in innovation, company building, and leadership, she brings valuable insights to nurture scientific research into valuable start-ups. Holding a PhD in Physics from McGill University, Ann-Lauriene founded her own company and has extensive experience in company building through her leadership position at Sparrow Ventures. She is passionate about new technologies and is dedicated to enabling researchers to become entrepreneurial leaders by facilitating the transfer from research to start-up.
Viviana Gropengiesser
Strategic Advisor Entrepreneurship
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Viviana Gropengiesser is a graduate in business psychology with more than 10 years of management experience in startup and NGO environments. After building up the entrepreneurship side of the ETH AI Center as Director Entrepreneurship for the first 3 years since its foundation, she is now a Strategic Advisor at the ETH AI Center. She is also the CEO of Talent Kick, a Swiss-wide entrepreneurship program by the Kick Foundation and is passionate about enabling top talents to proactively and positively shape the future as responsible entrepreneurial leaders.
Isabelle Siegrist
Strategic Advisor Entrepreneurship
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Isabelle supports the entrepreneurship team of ETH AI Center in connecting internationally with other startup ecosystems and investors. Isabelle Siegrist has been building and investing in over 30 startups since 2016, is a Forbes 30u30 Alumna (2019), studied Business Innovation at HSG, and conducts research today on using AI in VC decision-making at ETH Zurich. She teaches at various universities on entrepreneurship topics and has published a book on business building called “Leg Los!" with Beobachter Verlag.
Melanie Gabriel
Entrepreneur in Residence
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Melanie Gabriel, Entrepreneur in Residence and Lecturer at the ETH AI Center, is a founder, board member, and angel investor. She co-founded Yokoy in 2019, a Swiss FinTech & AI company that grew to over 200 employees and raised over USD 107m from top venture capital firms like Sequoia and Balderton. She recently co-founded followthegradient.io to make startup knowledge more accessible. Melanie is a board member of Moodtalk and serves on various advisory boards. She holds a master’s degree in business management from the University of St. Gallen, was inducted into Switzerland’s 100 Digital Shapers Hall of Fame, and received the HSG Founder of the Year Award 2023.
Flavio Rump
Entrepreneur in Residence for AI in Sustainability
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Flavio co-founded DeinDeal which grew to 100 employees and was later acquired by Ringier. He holds an MSc. in Computational Biology from ETH Zürich. Today, Flavio is an angel investor in various startups including ETH Spinoffs such as Verity and Veezoo, where he is also a board member. At the AI Center, Flavio focuses on how AI and biotech can solve customer pain points while promoting environmental sustainability.
Industry Partnerships
Daniel Naeff
Head of Innovation & Entrepreneurship
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Daniel is the Head of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the ETH AI Center. With a background in mechanical and industrial engineering from ETH and MIT, he brings extensive experience in the buildup of and investment in early stage companies across multiple sectors - most recently as co-founder of impact venture studio Brainforest. He also serves on the board of several organizations, including the Board of Directors of ETH Alumni.
Wayne Zeng
Partnership Coordinator
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Wayne is the Partnership Coordinator at the ETH AI Center. He earned his Master's Degree in Applied Mathematics at ETH Zurich, where he specialised in statistics, machine learning, and natural language processing. He previously helped coordinate the ETH AI Center Fellowship Program.
Mauricio Moncada
Industry Collaborations Coordinator
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Mauricio serves as the Industry Collaborations Coordinator at the ETH AI Center. He works closely with our researchers, industry partners, affiliated startups, aiming to bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI research and real world innovation.
He has a Master’s Degree in Management and Economics from the University of Zurich, where he wrote his Master thesis on competition policy and AI regulation. Mauricio is deeply passionate about AI policy and the transformative effect of AI on society.
Marketing, Communications and Events
Dr. Helga Rietz
Science Communication Manager
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Helga Rietz is the Science Communications Manager at ETH AI Center. She has a background in physics and graduated with a PhD in attosecond physics in Heidelberg, Germany. Writing and storytelling, however, has always been a passion of hers. Before joining the ETH AI Center, Helga has been a writer and editor for the science section of Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
Valeria Bella
Event Manager
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Valeria Bella is the Event Manager at the ETH AI Center. She has an extensive experience within the event industry and was previously working as an event manager at the Stadion Letzigrund. Valeria is enthusiastic about providing the best event experience and thinks that events are crucial for the exchange and creation of state-of-the art technology.
Diar Rachman
Marketing and Comms Coordinator
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Diar is the Marketing and Communications Coordinator at the ETH AI Center, with a Master in International Law from the University of St. Gallen and her tenure at the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague, she merges her diplomatic expertise, and marketing acumen to elevate the ETH AI Center's global standing, championing ethical AI discussions through strategic communication and engaging narratives.
Hanna Brahme
Curator AI House Davos
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Hanna leads the curation of the AI House in Davos. With a background in engineering and business, her main focus is deep tech innovation and activities that aim to reimagine and shape the future. She is a leader with experience from organisations like ABB, the UN, TEDxZurich and geographies like the US, Nordics and China.
AI for Education
Fiona Könz
AI for School Project Manager
Fiona Könz studied Biochemistry (MSc) and Fine Arts (BA) in Zurich. She worked as a freelancing artist with her art partner Gregor Vogel mainly doing participative performance projects in public space. From 2019 to 2023 she was part of the Strategic Foresight Team in the Office of the President at ETH Zurich working on projects concerning the long-term future of Universities and Education. After having worked for one year at digitalswitzerland, she joined the ETH AI Center to lead the external page Swiss AI Competition.
Dr. Gerd Kortemeyer
AI for Education
Dr. Gerd Kortemeyer is the Center’s liaison to the ETH Rectorate and advances initiatives in the area of AI for Education. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Michigan State University, where he is also an Associate Professor Emeritus of Physics Education. He brings a background in Educational Technology, in particular assessment and learning analytics.
