Welcome to the MOSAIC group

A mosaic is "a combination of diverse elements forming a coherent whole", a mosaic is colorful and more than the sum of its parts. A mosaic lives from the synergies between the individually colored tiles. This name represents both what we are and what we do: the MOSAIC group combines researchers from several cultural and academic backgrounds in a truly interdisciplinary team that develops, teaches, and applies MOdels, Simulations, and Algorithms for Interdisciplinary Computing. Hereby, we focus on the theories and algorithms that are required in order to analyze, model, and simulate complex real-world systems. The systems of interest are characterized by one or several of the following:
• Complex geometric shapes
• Non-equilibrium
• High-dimensional
• Multi-scale
• Noisy
• Non-ergodic
• No global underlying structure
• Branching processes on trees and graphs

Such systems frequently require novel theories and algorithms in the modeling, and the application of large-scale parallel high-performance computing in the simulations. At present, such systems are increasingly found in biology, where novel algorithms and methods are needed in order to enable computers to help unravel and help understand the complex working mechanisms of life on all scales. We thus view biology as an important “technology driver” for future developments in Computer Science.

The MOSAIC Group is an experiment in interdisciplinary creativity, combining expertise from Computer Science, mathematics, engineering, physics, and biology. This is reflected by the interdisciplinary composition of our group, the fact that many group members have dual degrees, and the close and iterative collaborations across today's discipline boundaries. Our group has a triple affiliation with the ETH Departments of Computer Science (our home Department), Biology, and Mechanical and Process Engineering. In addition, we are members of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB), of the Zurich Center for Imaging Science and Technology (CIMST), of the Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences (MedILS), and we participate in the curriculum in Computational Science and Engineering (RW/CSE) hosted by the ETH Departments of Mathematics and Physics.