Biography
Laurène Donati is a Swiss biomedical engineer who served as a Master of Science intern at Columbia University’s Heffner Biomedical Imaging Lab (HBIL) from 2014 to 2015. At the time, she was pursuing her MSc in bioengineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Her internship at Columbia focused on biomedical image analysis, contributing to research in advanced imaging techniques.
Following her internship, Donati completed her PhD in electrical engineering at EPFL in 2020, where her research centered on developing novel reconstruction methods for cryo-electron microscopy, including unsupervised learning-based techniques for single-particle analysis.
Currently, Dr. Donati is the Executive Director and co-founder of the EPFL Center for Imaging, established in 2021. In this role, she leads interdisciplinary initiatives that integrate imaging technologies across various scientific domains, fostering collaboration among over 90 laboratories within EPFL.
In recognition of her academic and professional excellence, she received the 2014 WISH Community Career Investment Award from the EPFL Foundation for Women in Sciences and Humanities. Additionally, she served as an elected member of the Parliament of Valais, Switzerland, from 2013 to 2017.