Philippe Janson

Philippe Janson (HF 1972-74) got a BS and MS in E.E. from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). During his Harkness Fellowship (1972-1974) he earned a MS and subsequently a PhD in IT security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1976 to 1996 he taught Operating Systems at the Ecole Polytechique of the ULB.  At the same time he joined IBM's Research Laboratory in Zurich, where he started work on local networks. He spent 1986 on a sabbatical assignment to transfer that technology to IBM's Development Laboratory in Austin, Texas. Back at IBM Research in Zurich in 1987 he led several projects in heterogeneous networking and IT security. In 1995 he became head of the Computer Science Research department. He was elected to IBM's Academy of Technology, of which he was Vice President in 2000 et 2001. In 2001 he joined the Advisory Board of the Communication and IT Department of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Research Council of the Swiss National Foundation.  In 2010 he left IBM to take a professorship at EPFL, teaching IT security and Computer Science basics. From 2017 to 2019, he developed and taught cyberdefense courses for the Swiss army. He holds a dozen patents and published over 50 articles in IT security, as well as a 1985 textbook on operating systems.