Robert Dalang

Elected committee for the Pension fund PUBLICA

Elected to this committee in Fall 2007 and then reelected for 2009-2012, I have been participating in the efforts needed so that our pension fund can evolve in a manner that preserves as much as possible the interests of EPFL’s employees. The passage from a defined benefits system to a defined contributions system freed the Federal Government from its long-time promises, by putting the burden of risk on the employees and the employer. The challenges that we encounter are many. The stock market crisis of 2008 was one of the first. Thanks to PUBLICA’s prudent investment policy, our pension fund has obtained a better performance than most other Swiss pension funds. A second challenge concerned the decrease in the pension conversion rate. Our committee succeeded in attenuating the impact of this change by preventing the decrease of our pensions while avoiding any increase in the employee monthly contributions. One of the next challenges concerns the long term rates of returns of our invested assets, which is a problem that is common to all pension funds. Our committee must formulate realistic objectives, while reminding our employer of its responsibilities to its employees. I feel that it would be useful to let all employees benefit from the legal, actuarial and financial experience that I have acquired during five years of work on this committee. In order to guarantee the continuity of our effort, I hope that the employees of EPFL will allow me to continue to serve the EPFL community for the next four years. Information concerning the activities of this elected committee can be found at http://organeparitairepublica.epfl.ch/

Awards

Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics

Robert Dalang was nominated for his pioneering contributions to the study of stochastic partial differential equations driven by a Gaussian noise which is white in time with a spatially homogeneous covariance.

2019

Infoscience

Teaching & PhD

Past EPFL PhD Students

Adriana Climescu-Haulica, Olivier Lévêque, Yannick Zufferey, Eulalia Nualart Dexeus, Violetta Bernyk, Daniel Conus, Frédéric Dumas, Laura Vinckenbosch, Jean-Benoît Rossel, Le Chen, Thomas Humeau, Carlo Ciccarella, Fei Pu, David Jean-Michel Candil

Courses

Analysis III (for SV, MT)

MATH-203(a)

The course studies the fundamental concepts of vector analysis and Fourier-Laplace analysis with a view to their use in other courses and for solving multidisciplinary problems in science and engineering.

Analysis IV (for SV, MT)

MATH-207(a)

This course is an introduction to the theory of Fourier series, Fourier transforms (including for tempered distributions) and Laplace transforms, and to their use in the resolution of ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations.

Theory of stochastic calculus

MATH-431

Introduction to the mathematical theory of stochastic calculus: construction of the Ito stochastic integral, proof of the Ito formula, introduction to stochastic differential equations, Girsanov's theorem and the Feynman-Kac formula, the martingale representation theorem.