News

Aldo Steinfeld, a pioneer in synthetic fuels, retires at the end of July 2025. This provides a compelling reason to present a portrait of the engineer and to find out how you can fill up your fuel tank with sun. 

The automation company Festo and ETH Zurich are creating soft robotic actuators with muscle-like performance. Scalable, efficient, and flexible, this technology could unlock new possibilities for automation, from grippers to valves—bringing us closer to autonomous machines with muscle-like capabilities.

An interdisciplinary research team from Bern and Zurich has developed a method to clean urinary stents and catheters non-invasively – through the skin and without surgery – using ultrasound-activated microstructures.

The focus projects MONKEE and ReefRanger will each receive CHF 10,000 from the Sustainability Fund of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (D-MAVT). 

The Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering has awarded Nicolas Bartzsch the “Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award” for the fall semester of 2024, recognizing his dedication to the Bachelor's course “Control Systems I”.

Stefan Leutenegger has been appointed Associate Professor of Mobile Robotics in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering. Starting on 1 April 2025, the 42-year-old will return to his alma mater, ETH Zurich, bringing with him extensive expertise in aerial robotics and AI.

Kent Warren has been appointed Professor of Solar Energy Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering. The 32-year-old is an expert in exploiting solar energy with the aid of thermochemical processes and co-founder of OMC Thermochemistry, a startup company focused on producing green hydrogen from water and sustainable heat sources. He will take up his position on 1 April 2025.

Noémie Martin, a postdoctoral researcher at the Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory at ETH Zurich, wants to enhance the performance of industrial parts while reducing their environmental impact. She explores how to strategically combine different metal alloys in additive manufacturing processes. 

Antonio Gasós, a doctoral student at the Separation Processes Laboratory within the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich, has received the Inflection Award for his research on CO₂ storage in mineral materials.

In a total of 16 disciplines, the university ranks among the 10 best in the world. These are the latest results of the QS World University Rankings according to subject.

George Haller, Professor of Nonlinear Dynamics at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich, has been honoured with the 2025 Lyapunov Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Una Trivanovic, a former doctoral student at the Particle Technology Laboratory under Professor Sotiris Pratsinis, has been awarded the GAeF PhD Award by the Association for Aerosol Research (GAeF) for her outstanding doctoral thesis.

This year's Energy Summer School provides an opportunity to explore the energy transition and its technical, societal and (geo)political dimensions in an increasingly complex and uncertain global context.

ETH Zurich researchers have investigated how tiny gas bubbles can deliver drugs into cells in a targeted manner using ultrasound. For the first time, they have visualised how tiny liquid jets generated by microbubbles penetrate the cell membrane enabling the drug uptake.

For Switzerland to achieve its net zero climate target, not only must it reduce its CO₂ emissions, it must also find a way to store the greenhouse gas permanently. Researchers at ETH Zurich have investigated whether, and under what conditions, CO₂ could be stored underground in Switzerland.

Reflecting on his 27 years at D-MAVT, Sotiris Pratsinis recalls his students' successes in nanoparticle research and looks back on his time as department head. As he nears retirement, his essentials for a productive day will remain strong Swiss coffee and a laptop.

Stefan Leutenegger and Kent Warren have been appointed professors in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, effective 1 April 2025.

Die Weltwoche, Prof. Aldo Steinfeld, Spin-offs Climeworks und Synhelion

On the occasion of the "International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2025", we were able to conduct an interview with D-MAVT alumna Noah Zegna Rothenberger. Noah is a robotics engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA. In this interview, she talks about her career in robotics and why she is excited about using robots in extreme environments - whether it is in blood vessels or on Mars.