Develop your transversal skills
The Summer in the Lab program aims to provide a unique experience that allows participants to develop both their scientific and transversal skills. With two dynamic workshops in leadership and communication, participants will learn and practice key competences such as self-awareness, public speaking, creativity, and leadership to improve personal and professional efficiency and effectiveness.
Designed specifically for EPFL students, these first-rate workshops will be taught by experts in their field.
Leading Self & Working in Teams
Leadership is not only about leading people. It is about developing yourself as well as better interacting with others and helping them thrive.
Through this two-day leadership lab, you will start by building your self-awareness through activities, reflection and academic material on personality, values and emotional intelligence. You will examine your personal attributes against key leadership competencies.
You will then practice your leadership skills in concrete situations. You will get insights and feedback to develop your authentic style of leadership in order to drive dynamic and performing teams.
By the end of the workshop, you will have acquired a full set of techniques that will allow you to identify personality differences, adapt your communication in context, understand how to provide constructive feedback and improve your personal performance through trust and accountability.
Next dates:
- Weekend of 12-13 July 2025
Silke Mischke is a Cognitive Psychologist and is the co-program director of the IMD IECC program. She works as a leadership lecturer and Senior Executive Coach. She holds a Doctorate in Business Administration and a Master’s degree in Cognitive Psychology.
Silke is licensed to administer and interpret several instruments to illuminate individual and group preferences and growth potential. These include the Hogan, Myers Briggs Type Indicator, NEO, IDI and FIRO-B. She is also trained and certified by the Tavistock Institute in facilitating groups and decoding group dynamics.
Her coaching and teaching activities cover work with teams and individuals from international organizations. She works globally with customers from various industry sectors and governments.
Further to her role as Senior Executive Coach, she teaches emotional intelligence, negotiation skills, stress management, time management, and personal development.
In her role, she contributes to the program design of a series of Leadership programs at IMD. She also teaches in the E4S, REGARD and FLP programs at EPFL.
Silke wrote her doctoral research on the impact of emotional intelligence on trust and leadership development in a coaching context. She also acts as a conference speaker for specific events at IMD such as Leading High Impact Learning and IMD community sessions and international conferences to speak about the latest findings on how “executives learn and grow”.
Storytelling and presentation skills for effective scientific talks
Communication is an essential skill in a scientific career: you need to know how to articulate your arguments, present your work, pitch your ideas, and motivate your colleagues on the relevancy of your work.
This one-day and one-evening workshop will help you develop your communication aptitudes and prepare your work presentation for the research symposium.
During this training, you will learn to analyze your audience and how to communicate in a clear, memorable, and interesting way. You will discover how to deliver key messages in a story format and how to handle difficult questions.
Through practical and effective exercises, you will develop public speaking skills to communicate with credibility and confidence. You will learn about body language, how to build a personal presence on stage and how to modulate your vocal delivery in order to communicate with impact.
Our instructor will train the full group throughout the workshop. In addition, you will have the opportunity to benefit from an individual coaching session to practice and get the last recommendations before the symposium.
Next dates:
- 30th of August 2025: workshop.
- 9th and 10th of September 2025 in the evening: coaching sessions (to attend just one).
After attending lots of boring academic talks on fascinating topics, Francesco Screti, PhD, decided he had to do something to solve this situation!
Francesco aims to help people present themselves better and communicate their scientific results more effectively by providing them with a toolbox of concepts, tips, methods, reflections, and practical exercises that match everyone’s needs.
He is an energetic and enthusiastic public speaker who has taught numerous courses (language, communication, research methods), given dozens of talks, and animated several workshops on various subjects for many institutions across Europe.
Contact
For further information on the Summer in the Lab internship program, please contact us:
EPFL AVP-E SPE
Centre Midi – CM2 348
Station 10
CH – 1015 Lausanne