Biography

Pina Marziliano obtained her Bachelors of Science degree in Applied Mathematics and Masters of Science degree in Computer Science in 1994 and 1996, respectively, from the Universite de Montreal. She completed the pioneering Doctoral School program in the Communications Systems Department at the EPFL in 1997 and obtained her PhD degree in 2001.
 
 Her professional career began as a Senior Research Engineer in a start-up company called Genimedia SA in Lausanne, Switzerland where she developed perceptual quality metrics for multimedia applications which led her to two highly cited (>100) journal and conference papers, as well as, the filing of a patent. In 2003, she became an Assistant Professor for the Division of Information Engineering in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore focusing her research in biomedical signal and image processing. In 2006, she was seconded to NTU’s International Relations Office for one year where she co-strategized the university international partnerships and conceptualised the Global Partnership Management and Analysis Tool.
 
 She received the IEEE Signal Processing Society 2006 Best Paper Award for the article entitled "Sampling Signals with Finite Rate of Innovation" co-authored with Martin Vetterli and Thierry Blu. Later that year patents on the same topic were acquired by Qualcomm Inc., USA, followed by consultancy work which led to obtaining US$200K industry research grant from Qualcomm.
 
 In 2009, a workshop co-organised by NTU’s College of Engineering and Tan Tock Seng Hospital and partner of the NTU-Imperial College Medical School sparked several research collaborations with doctors from the Ophthalmology Department and Diagnostic Radiology Department which have led to joint international conference and journal publications, significant (>SGD$3M) joint research funding and a granted US patent.
 
 Apart from her research achievements, she has served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Signal Processing Letters, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, a technical reviewer for more than a dozen international conference and Tier-1 journal publications, as well as, a Technical Program Committee member of international conferences and voted in as member of the highly selective Signal Processing Theory and Methods Technical Committee in the IEEE Signal Processing Society. She has served as the Chair of the IEEE Singapore Section Women In Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group where she spearheaded and co-organized monthly technical and social activities, thus increasing the group’s visibility in the IEEE Singapore Section. With her leadership and initiatives, the group received the 2009 Honourable Mention Women in Engineering Affinity Group of the Year Award from the IEEE WIE Committee in the USA. In 2011, she was the General Chair of the 9th International Conference on Sampling Theory and Applications, co-organised by the School of EEE and School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, NTU. This interdisciplinary conference and flagship event of her research community was held for the first time in Asia on the NTU campus. It gathered 132 participants comprising of mathematicians, engineers and applied scientists from 26 countries around the globe.
 
 In 2012, she was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Besides pursuing her academic career, she has been actively involved in technology transfer and entrepreneurship co-founding a design company PABensen and a biotechnology spin-off BIORITHM. 
 
In 2019, Pina Marziliano was appointed Executive Director of the Centre for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM), a centre composed of five partner institutions HUG, UNIGE, EPFL, UNIL and CHUV located in a 50km radius of the Lemans region in Switzerland. The unique union of reputable clinicians, academics and researchers combined with the capabilities of developing cutting edge technology and housing the latest state-of-the art equipment, is her source of inspiration and drive in leading CIBM, a world reknowned Centre of Excellence in Biomedical Imaging.

Entrepreneurship

In October 2012, together with her husband Peter Arnoud Bensen, Dutch artist and designer, she co-founded PABensen Pte. Ltd., a Singapore based design company engaged in developing thought provoking artistic objects and innovative functional products that bridge the fields of art, science and technology.
 
In November 2014, BIORITHM, a biotechnology spin-off emerged following a joint research collaboration between Dr. David Foo Chee Guan, Head of Cardiology Department at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore and Pina Marziliano's Masters student Mr. Amrish Nair who is currently the CEO. Since 2016, the company has been involved in developing a fetal heart monitoring device FEMOM leveraging on Dr. Pina Marziliano digital signal processing expertise.