- Paul Scherrer
Paul Scherrer was a Swiss physicist. He was born in Herisau, Switzerland. He studied at Göttingen, Germany, before becoming a lecturer there. Later, Scherrer became head of the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich.
- Bertrand Meyer
Bertrand Meyer (born 1950 in France) developed the Eiffel programming language, and is an author, academic and consultant in the field of computer languages. Meyer pursues the ideal of simple, elegant and user-friendly computer languages and is one of the earliest and most vocal proponents of object-oriented programming (OOP). His book on "Object-Oriented Software Construction" is often considered the best work on presenting the case for OOP.
- Kurt Wüthrich
Kurt Wüthrich is a Swiss chemist and Nobel laureate. Born in Aarberg, Switzerland, Wüthrich was educated in chemistry, physics, and mathematics at the University of Berne before pursuing his Ph.D. under the direction of Silvio Fallab at the University of Basel, awarded in 1964. He continued post-doctoral work with Fallab for a short time before leaving to work at the University of California, Berkeley from 1965 to 1967 with Robert E. Connick.
- Konrad Zuse
Konrad Zuse was a German engineer and computer pioneer. His greatest achievement was the completion of the first functional program-controlled computer, the Z3, in 1941 (the program was stored on a tape). In 1998 the Z3 was proven to be Turing-complete. Zuse also designed the first high-level programming language, the Plankalkül, first published in 1948, although this was a theoretical contribution, …
- Gerhard Weikum
Prof. Dr-Ing. Gerhard Weikum is a Research Director (and, as of 2006, also the Managing Director) at the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science (MPI) in Saarbruecken, Germany, where he is leading the databases and information systems department. His current research interests include distributed information systems, P2P computing, database performance optimization (automatic tuning) and self-organization (autonomic computing), …
- Jean-Raymond Abrial
Jean-Raymond Abrial (born 1938) is a French computer scientist and inventor of the Z and B formal methods. J.-R. Abrial is the originator of the Z notation (typically used for formal specification of software), during his time at the Programming Research Group within the Oxford University Computing Laboratory, and later the B-Method (normally used for software development), two leading formal methods for software engineering.
- Greg Lynn
Greg Lynn (born 1964), is an American architect, philosopher, and science-fiction writer
- Frank Schimmelfennig
Frank Schimmelfennig (* 1963, Marienberg) is a professor of European politics at the Center for Comparative and International Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.
- Marcel Grossmann
Marcel Grossmann (born in Budapest on April 9, 1878 - died in Zurich on September 7, 1936) was a mathematician, a friend, and a classmate of Albert Einstein. He became a Professor of Mathematics at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, today the ETH Zurich, specialising in descriptive geometry. Of Jewish ancestry, it was Grossmann who emphasized the importance of a non-Euclidean geometry called elliptic geometry to Einstein, …
- Helga Nowotny
Helga Nowotny is Vice President of ERC Scientific Council and has been Professor for Social Studies of Science at ETH Zurich since 1996. From 1998 on she was also Director of the Collegium Helveticum. She has been founding director of the post-graduate fellowship programme based at ETH “Society in science: the Branco Weiss Fellowship” until 2004, when she returned to her native Vienna. She is now a Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Wien.
- Richard R. Ernst
Richard Robert Ernst (born August 14, 1933) is a Swiss physical chemist and Nobel Laureate. Born in Winterthur, Switzerland, Ernst was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1991 for his contributions towards the development of multidimensional, Fourier transform nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy while at Varian Associates, Palo Alto, California. This technique is used in medicine to get precise images of the human body, …
- Atsumu Ohmura
Atsumu Ohmura is a Japanese climatologist, known for his contributions to the theory of global dimming. Ohmura was born in the Bunkyō ward of Tokyo in 1942. In 1965 he graduated with a B.Sc from the University of Tokyo and in 1969 received an M.Sc from McGill University. He later received a Dr.sc.nat from the ETH Zurich. Ohmura is a professor emeritus of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich, …
- Bernard Tschumi
Bernard Tschumi (born January 25 1944 Lausanne, Switzerland) is an architect, writer, and educator. Born of French and Swiss parentage, he works and lives in New York and Paris. He studied in Paris and at ETH in Zurich, where he received his degree in architecture in 1969. Tschumi has taught at Portsmouth Polytechnic in Portsmouth, UK, the Architectural Association in London, the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York, Princeton University, …
- Karl Lieberherr
Karl J. Lieberherr is a Professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University, in Boston. He is known as the father of adaptive programming. He did his studies at ETH Zurich, obtaining an M.S. in 1973 and a Ph.D. in 1977. He wrote the first book about adaptive programming. The work on this theme was one of several secondary influences on the development of aspect-oriented programming. Adaptive programming tries to create applications that are easy to maintain and evolve, …
- François Diederich
Professor François Diederich is a Luxembourgian chemist specialising in organic chemistry. He obtained both his diploma and PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1977 and 1979, respectively. After postdoctoral studies with Prof. Chapman at the University of California, Los Angeles and habilitation at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, he became Full Professor at UCLA in 1989. In 1992 he was appointed Professor of Organic Chemistry at ETH Zurich.
- Xuejia Lai
Xuejia Lai is a cryptographer, currently a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His notable work includes the design of the block cipher IDEA, the theory of Markov ciphers, and the cryptanalysis of a number of cryptographic hash functions. Lai received a B.Sc. in electrical engineering in 1982 and an M.Sc. in mathematics in 1984 at Xidian University (then known as "Northwest Institute of Telecommunication Engineering").
- Werner Arber
Werner Arber is a Swiss microbiologist and geneticist. Along with American researchers Hamilton Smith and Daniel Nathans, Werner Arber shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction endonuclei. Their work would lead to the development of recombinant DNA technology. Werner Arber studied chemistry and physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich from 1949 to 1953.
- James Massey
James Lee Massey (born in 1934 in Wauseon, Ohio) is an information theorist and cryptographer, Professor Emeritus of Digital Technology at ETH Zurich. His notable work includes the application of the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm to linear codes, the design of the block ciphers IDEA (with Xuejia Lai) and SAFER, and the Massey-Omura cryptosystem (with Jim K. Omura). Massey received a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1956 from the University of Notre Dame, …
- Eduard Imhof
Eduard Imhof was a professor of cartography at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, from 1925 - 1965. His fame, which extends far beyond the Institute of Technology, stems from his relief shading work on school maps and atlases. Between 1922 and 1973 Imhof worked on many school maps. He drew and shaded maps of Switzerland as well her various cantons and the Austrian province of Vorarlberg.
- Otto Stern
Otto Stern was a German physicist and Nobel laureate. Stern was born in Sohrau (Żory) in the German Empire's Kingdom of Prussia (now in Poland) and studied at Breslau (Wrocław) in Lower Silesia. Stern completed his studies at the University of Breslau in 1912 with a doctor's degree in physical chemistry. He then followed Albert Einstein to Charles University in Prague and in later to ETH Zurich.
- Christian Menn
Christian Menn (born March 3, 1927) is a respected bridge designer from Bern, Switzerland. He owned his own Engineering Company in Chur, Switzerland from 1957-1971. From 1971 until his retirement in 1992 he became a professor of Structural Engineering at ETH Zurich specializing in Bridge design. In his retirement years, he continues to be a consulting engineer in private practice.
- Max Jammer
Max Jammer (born 1915 in Berlin, Germany) is an Israeli physicist and philosopher of physics. He studied physics, philosophy and history of Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After a PhD in experimental physics, Jammer went to Harvard University for postgraduate work. He subsequently became a lecturer there and a close colleague of Albert Einstein at Princeton University. He taught at Harvard, the University of Oklahoma and Boston University, …
- Henk Barendregt
Hendrik Pieter (Henk) Barendregt (b. 1947) is a Dutch logician, known for his work in lambda calculus and type theory. Barendregt holds the chair of Foundations of Mathematics and Computer Science at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and is adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, USA. Since 1986 he has been a professor at Radboud University Nijmegen, where he and his group work on Constructive Interactive Mathematics.
- Eduard Stiefel
Eduard L. Stiefel (21 April 1909 - 25 November 1978) was a mathematician. Together with Cornelius Lanczos and Magnus Hestenes, he invented the conjugate gradient method. Stiefel entered the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1928. He received his Ph.D. in 1935 under Heinz Hopf; his dissertation was titled "Richtungsfelder und Fernparallelismus in n-dimensionalen Mannigfaltigkeiten". Stiefel completed his habilitation in 1942.
- Jürgen Moser
Jürgen Moser was a German American mathematician who specialized in dynamical systems. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen in 1952. He emigrated to the United States in 1953. He became a professor at MIT and later New York University. After 1980 he was at ETH Zurich.
- Gisbert Wüstholz
Gisbert Wüstholz is a German mathematician who obtained his Ph.D. from the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg in 1977. His contributions are mainly in the area of algebraic number theory and diophantine approximation. He currently is Professor of Mathematics at the ETH Zurich, a particular important technological university. He has written over 60 articles in his subject
- Demetrios Christodoulou
Demetrios Christodoulou (b. October 19, 1951) is a Greek mathematical physicist, well known in the field of general relativity for his proof, together with Sergiu Klainerman, of the nonlinear stability of the Minkowski vacuum. Christodoulou was born in Athens and received his doctorate from Princeton University under the direction of John Archibald Wheeler. He has taught at Cal Tech, Syracuse University, and Princeton, …
- Heinrich Weber
Heinrich Martin Weber was a German mathematician who specialized in algebra and number theory. He is best known for his text "Lehrbuch der Algebra" published in 1895 and it is his work in algebra and number theory. Weber was born in Heidelberg and entered the University of Heidelberg in 1860. In 1866 he became a privatdozent, and in 1869 he was appointed as extraordinary professor at that school. Weber also taught in Zurich at the Federal Polytechnic Institute, …
- Simon Ammann
Simon Ammann (born June 25, 1981 in Grabs) is a Swiss ski jumper. He grew up in Unterwasser where his parents still live. He currently lives in Schindellegi, Switzerland. He made his debut as a 16-year-old unknown during the 1997-1998 Ski jumping World Cup season. Ammann qualified for the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games, where he finished 35th. Before the 2002 Winter Olympics, he crashed and suffered injuries.
- Friedrich Hirzebruch
Friedrich E.P. Hirzebruch is a German mathematician, working in the fields of topology, complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and a leading figure in his generation. He was born in Hamm, Westphalia. He studied at the University of Münster from 1945-1950, with one year at ETH Zürich. He then had a position at Erlangen, followed by the years 1952-54 at IAS in Princeton, New Jersey.
- Othmar Ammann
Othmar Herman Ammann (March 26 1879 - September 22 1965) was a renowned civil engineer whose designs include: *George Washington Bridge (opened October 24 1931) *Bayonne Bridge (opened November 15 1931) *Triborough Bridge (opened July 11 1936) *Bronx-Whitestone Bridge (opened April 29 1939) *Throg's Neck Bridge (opened January 11 1961) *Verrazano Narrows Bridge (opened November 21 1964) Othmar Ammann was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland in 1879.
- Armand Borel
Armand Borel was a Swiss mathematician, born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and was a permanent professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, United States from 1957 to 1993. He worked in algebraic topology, in the theory of Lie groups, and was one of the creators of the contemporary theory of linear algebraic groups. He studied at the ETH Zürich. He came under the influence of the topologist Heinz Hopf, and the Lie group theorist Eduard Stiefel.
- Carl Alfred Meier
Carl Alfred Meier was a Swiss psychiatrist, Jungian Psychologist and scholar. He became the first president of the C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich. As successor to Carl Jung, he held the Chair of Honorary Professor of Psychology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1949. Later, co-founded the Clinic and Research Center for Jungian Psychology, Zürichberg. Professor Meier was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. In 1924 he entered University of Zürich.
- Paul Niggli
Paul Niggli was a Swiss crystallographer who was a leader in the field of X-ray crystallography. Niggli was born in Zofingen and studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the University of Zurich, where he obtained a doctorate. In 1920 he became the lead scientist at the "Institut für Mineralogie und Petrographie", and brought a systematic approach to the study of crystal morphologies using X-rays, originating the system of 230 space groups.
- Auguste Piccard
Auguste Antoine Piccard was a Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer. Piccard and his twin brother Jean Felix were born in Basel, Switzerland. Showing an intense interest in science as a child, he attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and became a professor of physics in Brussels at the Free University of Brussels in 1922, the same year his son Jacques Piccard was born. He was a member of the Solvay Congress of 1927.
- Kārlis Ulmanis
Kārlis Ulmanis (b. September 4, 1877 in Bērze, Latvia – d. September 20, 1942 in Krasnovodsk prison, Soviet Union) was the most prominent Latvian politician in pre-World War II Latvia during the Latvian period of independence from 1918 to 1940. Ulmanis studied agriculture at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and at Leipzig University, Germany, and then worked in Latvia as a writer, lecturer, and manager in agricultural positions.
- David Ruelle
David P. Ruelle is a Belgian-French mathematical physicist. He has worked on statistical physics and dynamical systems. With Floris Takens he coined the term "strange attractor", and founded a new theory of turbulence. In 1986, he received the Boltzmann Medal for his outstanding contributions to statistical mechanics. in 2004, he received the Matteucci Medal. He studied physics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, obtaining a Ph.D. degree in 1959.
- Michel Plancherel
Michel Plancherel was a Swiss mathematician. He was born in Bussy (Fribourg, Switzerland) and obtained his diploma in mathematics from the University of Fribourg in 1907. He was a professor in Fribourg (1911), and from 1920 at ETH Zurich. He worked in the areas of mathematical analysis, mathematical physics and algebra, and is known for the Plancherel theorem in harmonic analysis. Outside of math he was married to Cécile Tercier, had nine children, …
- Hans Jenny
Hans Jenny was a soil scientist and expert on pedology (study of soil resources), particularly the processes of soil formation. Hans Jenny was born in Basel, Switzerland. He earned a diploma in agriculture from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in 1922, and a D. Sc. degree in 1927 for a thesis on ion exchange reactions. Following an appointment at the University of Missouri, he joined the faculty at Berkeley in 1936.
- Georg Lunge
Georg Lunge (15 September 1839 - 1923) was a German chemist born in Breslau. He studied at Heidelberg (under Robert Bunsen) and Breslau, graduating at the latter university in 1859. Turning his attention to technical chemistry, he became chemist at several works both in Germany and England, and in 1876 he was appointed professor of technical chemistry at ETH Zurich. Lunge's original contributions over a very wide field, dealing both with technical processes and analysis.