Prof. Dieter Imboden 

Prof. Dieter Imboden, Environmental Physics, ETH Zurich

Dieter Imboden has been full Professor of Environmental Physics at the Department of Environmental Sciences since 1988. He served as head of the department from 1992 to 1996. His research group is affiliated with the Institute for Aquatic Sciences and Water Pollution Control (IGW).

Prof. Imboden was born in Zurich on August 22, 1943. He studied theoretical physics in Berlin and Basel and in 1971 received his doctorate at the ETH Zurich following a dissertation on theoretical solid-state physics. His interest for the environment, particularily water, brought him to the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Sciences and Technology (EAWAG), to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California, as well as to other American universities. Since 1974 he has been teaching at the ETH Zurich. In 1982 he completed his habilitation requirements in the field of mathematical modeling and environmental physics. In 1987 he was one of the co-founders of the new curriculum in environmental sciences at the ETH Zurich. From 1998 to 1999 he was the director of novatlantis, an interdisciplinary project on sustainable development within the domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technolgy, where he initiated the pilote project ”2000 Watt Society”.

For many years Prof. Imboden’s main research concerned the physics and chemistry of natural water bodies, especially the large lakes of the earth (Lake Baikal, Caspian Sea, etc.). One of his central aims in research as well as in teaching is to combine the methods of physics with other disciplines in order to tackle the complex environmental problems. His textbook ”Environmental Organic Chemistry” which he wrote together with two chemists, René Schwarzenbach from ETH Zurich and Phil Gschwend from MIT, won the ”Chemistry Book of the Year Award” of the Association of American Publishers in 1994. Using examples such as «global climate change» or «energy policies», Prof. Imboden attempts to bridge the gap between natural and social science and the humanities. He serves on various professional comissions including the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation.