2021

The Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering honored Julia Gerber, Raphael Glaesener, and Chi Zhang for their outstanding doctoral theses in memory of Amir Ashrafi Habibabadi. Habibabadi, a doctoral student at the Institute of Fluid Dynamics, tragically died in 2020.

Laurent Guin and Prateek Gupta, both former postdoctoral fellows with ETH Professor Dennis Kochmann in the Institute of Mechanical Systems at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering have been appointed Assistant Professors.

SRF Einstein, Fokus Project Aris

Researchers from the Multiphase Fluid Dynamics Lab of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering of ETH Zurich win a Gallery Fluid Motion Award 2021 for a video combining experimental visualizations and simulations done in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.

"Engineering sciences are fun" - that is the core message of the taster day for schoolgirls. More than 80 girls followed the invitation of LIMES (Ladies In Mechanical and Electrical Studies) and came to ETH Zurich to find out more about studying at the Departments of Mechanical and Process Engineering and Information Technology and Electrical Engineering.

inside-it.ch, Spin-off Autoform

Dennis Kochmann, Professor of Mechanics and Materials at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, receives the Golden Owl for excellent teaching. The Owl is awarded by the student association of ETH Zurich (VSETH) and honors exceptional teaching.

Five doctoral students at the Department of Mechanical und Process Engineering receive the ETH Silver Medal for their outstanding doctoral theses: Jan Carius, Urban Fasel, Thomas Lumpe, Tino Matter and Jan van den Broek.

3Druck.com, students of the Product Development Group, Prof. Mirko Meboldt

Maria Lukatskaya, Professor of the Electrochemical Energy Systems Laboratory at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, is listed as a “Highly Cited Researcher” in 2021. The list is compiled by Clarivate's Institute for Scientific Information.

For their EU project "Sun-to-Liquid", the research group of Aldo Steinfeld, ETH professor for renewable energy carriers, and their partners were awarded the Energy Globe World Award 2021. The award is considered one of the world's most prestigious environmental prizes.

Prof. Dr. David Norris (D-MAVT) was elected President of the Prize Committee by the Executive Board of ETH Zurich. The commission advises the Executive Board on science prizes and proposes suitable ETH candidates for nomination for such prizes.

Nau.ch, Prof. Daniel Ahmed

Seraina Anne Dual, former doctoral student in the Product Development Group of Professor Mirko Meboldt at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering of ETH Zurich, has been appointed tenure-track Assistant Professor in Biomedical Signal Processing at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Health Systems at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Maria Sakovsky, postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratory of Composite Materials and Adaptive Structures of Professor Paolo Ermanni at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering of ETH Zurich, has been appointed Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Tenure Track) at Stanford University.

The Economist, Prof. Aldo Steinfeld

Blick, Prof. Aldo Steinfeld

swissinfo.ch, Prof. Margarita Chli

Ten Master students at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering receive a scholarship from the Excellence Scholarship & Opportunity Programme of ETH Zurich.

Every semester, the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering honors its teaching assistants for their valuable contributions with the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. The award for the spring semester 2021 goes to the Master’s student Melanie Oliveira Barros for her excellent performance in the Analysis II course. She will receive a monetary prize of CHF 500. Congratulations!

The Bachelor Outstanding Awards for the best Bachelor’s degrees issued between 28.09.2020 and 30.09.2021 go to Rebekka Hosch, David Benjamin Müller, Luca Liebi, Nicole Ferru and Stefan Hannes Weber. Congratulations!

The students Laurent Hoffmann, Maximilian Eberlein, Noël Jonas Strasser, Johannes Simon Gebhard, Nicola Irmiger and Jakob Schlichting receive the Bachelor Outstanding Award for the best first-year exams during the Spring Semester 2021. Congratulations!

Franca Schmid, former postdoctoral researcher at Professor Patrick Jenny’s group at the Institute of Fluid Dynamics at the ETH Zurich, received an Ambizione grant from SNF for her research on “Energy Supply in Whole Brain Microvascular Networks in Health and Disease - Quantifying the Relevance of Small-Scale Disturbances”.

Gioele Zardini, doctoral student at Professor Emilio Frazzoli’s group at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, and his co-author Nicolas Lanzetti received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE 24th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC 2021).

Team CERBERUS, an international consortium of scientists with major participation from ETH‘s Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, wins the DARPA Subterranean challenge and receives 2 million USD.

Jan van den Broek, former doctoral student of ETH Professor Sotiris Pratsinis, received the GAeF PhD Award. This award is presented to young researchers for their excellent PhD theses by the Association for Aerosol Research (GAeF). The award ceremony took place during the 2021 virtual European Aerosol Conference, 30 August – 4 September in Birmingham, UK, which was attended by more than 700 registered participants.

Lorenzo Rosa, postdoctoral researcher at the Separation Processes Laboratory of Professor Marco Mazzotti at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, is awarded with the Science for Solutions Award 2021 by the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Blick. Prof. Roland Siegwart

medinside.ch, Spin-off Scewo AG

Ines Weber, doctoral student at the Particle Technology Laboratory of Professor Sotiris Pratsinis at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, was awarded an EAC Best Poster Award at the 2021 European Aerosol Conference (EAC).

SRF «10 vor 10», Prof. Dimos Poulikakos, Iwan Hächler

nau.ch, Spin-off Climeworks

Paolo Gabrielli, former doctoral student at the Separation Process Laboratory of Professor Marco Mazzotti at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, receives the Hilti Prize 2021.

Blick, Prof. Inge Herrmann

Netzwoche.ch, Spin-off Voliro AG

berliner-zeitung.de, Prof. Lino Guzzella

Ingenieur.de, Prof. Raffaello D'Andrea, Dr. Markus Hehn, Spin-off Verity

In an international collaboration including the group of ETH Professor Melanie Zeilinger from the Institute of Dynamic Systems and Control, the ELO-X project has launched. The project aims to advance machine-learning techniques for industrial systems and trains 15 doctoral students in the process.

Tages-Anzeiger, Prof. Marco Mazzotti, Spin-offs Synhelion, Climeworks

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Prof. Annalisa Manera

Jochen Mueller, former doctoral student in Professor Kristina Shea’s Engineering Design and Computing Laboratory at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering of ETH Zurich, has been appointed Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Civil and Systems Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.

Tagesanzeiger.ch, Prof. Dimos Poulikakos, Iwan Hächler

Pius Theiler, doctoral student in the Nanotechnology Group of Professor Andreas Stemmer at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich, wins the LUCIDEON Materials Testing & Characterisation award for his work titled «The gentle touch of mesoscopic Atomic Force Microscope tips». The award was presented as one of seven Industry Poster Awards at the MaP Graduate Symposium 2021.

Jasan Zughaibi and Yaohui Huang receive the ETEL Master Award 2021 for the best Master’s theses in mechatronics at the Departments of Mechanical and Process Engineering as well as Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. The theses were supervised by Professor Raffaello D'Andrea.

Tino Matter, formal doctoral student at the Nanoparticle Systems Engineering Laboratory of Professor Inge Herrmann at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, wins the MaP Award 2021 for his outstanding doctoral thesis on “Uniting Bioactivities in Hybrid Nanosystems for Wound Healing”. The award is presented annually at the MaP Graduate Symposium.

Marco Gigantino, doctoral student at the Professorship of Renewable Energy Carriers of Professor Aldo Steinfeld at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, receives the Best Oral Presentation Award at the 2021 Materials Research Society Spring Meeting for his research work on high-temperature thermochemical energy storage via reversible redox reactions.

Wired.me, Fokus-Projekt SpaceBok

Ines Weber, doctoral student at the Particle Technology Laboratory of Professor Sotiris Pratsinis at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, wins the Third Place Student Presentation Award at the 18th International meeting on Chemical Sensors for her presentation titled “Superior Selectivity of Acetone in Gas Mixtures By Pt/Al2O3 Catalyst-Filtered Si/WO3 Sensors”.

Nine Master’s students of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering were awarded the ETH Medal for their outstanding Master’s theses in 2021. Three of them additionally received the Willi Studer Prize for the best degree within their study program.

Maria Krinner, Kaixi Bao, Xintong Liu and Xuejing Luo receive the Swiss Robotics Masters Award. The four students are enrolled in the Master's program in Robotics, Systems and Control at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering.

Jan Wurzbacher and Christoph Gebald have gone from an unconventional idea to a company with a hundred employees: they now run Climeworks, an internationally successful ETH spin-off. The road to success wasn’t always smooth.

Blick.ch, Prof. Marco Hutter, Péter Fankhauser, Spin-off Anybotics

Hui Zhou, research fellow of Professor Christoph Müller at the Laboratory of Energy Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich’s Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, has been appointed Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Energy and Power Engineering at Tsinghua University, China.

Tian (Tim) Chen, former doctoral student of Professor Kristina Shea at the Engineering Design and Computing Laboratory at ETH Zurich’s Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, has been appointed Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston.

Paul-Edouard Sarlin receives the Graduate Award 2020 of the SEW-Eurodrive Foundation for his Master’s thesis “SuperGlue: Learning Feature Matching with Graph Neural Networks", supervised by Professor Roland Siegwart at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering.

Radio SRF 2 KULTUR, Prof. Inge Herrmann

Sampada Bodkhe, former post-doctoral researcher at Professor Paolo Ermanni’s Laboratory of Composite Materials and Adaptive Structures at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, has been appointed Assistant Professor at Polytechnique Montréal.

In Switzerland, passenger and freight transport are responsible for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions compared to the other energy sectors of the economy. In their white paper, researchers from the SCCER Mobility provide expert knowledge to support stakeholders with the transformation of the Swiss mobility and energy system towards sustainability.

Netzwoche.ch, Prof. Marco Hutter, Péter Fankhauser, Start-up Anybotics

Arthur Schlothauer presented his research at the virtual annual AIAA SciTech Conference. His paper, “Effects of fiber non-linearity and matrix type on the realization of foldable structures”, has been selected and awarded the Best Student Paper Award by the American Society for Composites.

Nicole Aegerter, co-founder of the MAVT start-up Antefil Composite Tech and doctoral student with Professor Paolo Ermanni at the Laboratory of Composite Materials and Adaptive Structures of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich, is featured Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2021 Honoree in Manufacturing and Industry.

Der Bund, Prof. em. Horst-Michael Prasser

A fabric’s physical properties, such as its wettability and porosity, affect the stain left behind by an impacting droplet. How can forensic scientists decipher meaning from the shapes of these stains? Researchers have developed an approach to blood droplet analysis that can help investigate crime scenes.

Teaching assistants make a valuable contribution to the teaching activities at ETH Zurich. The Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering honors the excellent performances with the “Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award”, which is now awarded for the second time and includes a monetary prize of CHF 500. The award for the fall semester 2020 goes to the Master’s students Rahel Rickenbach (“Regelungstechnik I” lecture) and Christian Miklautz (“Analysis I” lecture).

Researchers at the ETH Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering have explored how flying can become more climate friendly. They have developed a method to calculate the CO₂ emissions of air travel. Their current focus lies on estimating the future cost of renewable jet fuel.

Jan van den Broek, doctoral student at the Particle Technology Laboratory of Professor Sotiris Pratsinis at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, received the Best Poster Award at the 2021 Conference on Chemical Sensors for Wearable Devices.

BernerZeitung, Prof. Horst-Michael Prasser

Blick.ch, Prof. Roland Siegwart

After receiving the 2020 Research Award from the Swiss Society for Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine, Xiaopu Wang now has been appointed adjunct assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and associate researcher at the AIRS.

Tian-Yun Huang, postdoctoral researcher with Professor Bradley Nelson at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering of ETH Zurich, has been appointed assistant professor at Peking University, Department of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics.

Mirko Meboldt, Professor of Product Development and Design at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, has been invited to join the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech).

SRF Rundschau, Prof. Patrick Jenny

punkt4.info, Prof. Roland Siegwart, Spin-off Sevensense

In times of working remotely and social distancing, personal exchange and networking opportunities often fall by the wayside. The Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (D-MAVT) has thus launched the doctoral student event "DocS@MAVT" in a virtual format. With success! More than 270 people participated in the event.

Elizabeth Tilley has been appointed Associate Professor of Global Health Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering. Starting on 1 February 2021, the 41-year-old Canadian will contribute with her expertise to building up the new field of global engineering science at ETH Zurich.

Konstantinos Boulouchos has been a titular professor at the Institute of Energy Technology since 1998 and a full professor since 2002. He will officially become professor emeritus at the end of January. In this interview, he reflects on special moments from more than 20 years at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering.

Horst-Michael Prasser has been a professor of nuclear energy systems at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (D-MAVT) since 2006. At the end of January 2021, the dedicated "Kerni", as he calls himself, will become emeritus.

chemie.de, Prof. Aldo Steinfeld, Spin-off Synhelion, Spin-off Neustark