Imboden, Dieter

Biography

Dieter Imboden is Professor emeritus at the ETH Zurich . He has been Full Professor of Environmental Physics in the Department of Environmental Sciences from 1988 to 2012. He served as head of the department from 1992 to 1996. From 2005 to 2012 he was President of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). 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) and to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California. 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". He has been visiting professor at various universities such as MIT and Caltech.

Research Interest

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 ETHZ and Phil Gschwend from MIT, won the "Chemistry Book of the Year Award" of the Association of American Publishers in 1994 (revised and expanded edition published in 2003). 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.