Luc Thévenaz received the M.Sc. degree and the Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. In 1988 he joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL) where he currently leads a research group involved in photonics, namely fibre optics and optical sensing. Research topics include fibre sensors, slow & fast light, nonlinear fibre optics and laser spectroscopy in gases. He achieved with his collaborators the first experimental demonstration of optically-controlled slow & fast light in optical fibres. His expertise covers all applications of stimulated Brillouin scattering in optical fibers and he is known for his innovative concepts related to distributed fiber sensing.. During his career he stayed at Stanford University, at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), at Tel Aviv University, at the University of Sydney and at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. In 2000 he co-founded the company Omnisens that is developing and commercializing advanced photonic instrumentation based on distributed fibre sensing. He is Fellow of both the IEEE and the Optical Society of America, and Editor in 3 major scientific journals.