Teaching

From autumn, ETH Zurich will offer a Master’s programme in Landscape Architecture – a first for a Swiss university. The demand for landscape architects is greater than ever, say professors Christoph Girot and Teresa Galí-Izard.

A hand-picked group of students, including several from EPFL, spent a grueling weekend at a space boot camp in Crans-Montana in the Swiss Alps. The would-be astronauts were preparing for the Asclepios space mission analog, run by EPFL student association Space@yourService.

The Enterprise for Society Center (E4S) will train future managers to meet the challenges of sustainability and social responsibility, in part by leveraging the opportunities presented by digital technology. The aim of E4S – a joint initiative between University of Lausanne (UNIL), International Institute for Management Development (IMD) and EPFL – will be to inspire the development of a sustainable, inclusive economic system. The first step will be the launch of a joint Master’s program.

An EPFL Bachelor’s student has solved a mystery that has puzzled scientists for 100 years. He discovered why gas bubbles in narrow vertical tubes seem to remain stuck instead of rising upwards. According to his research and observations, an ultra-thin film of liquid forms around the bubble, preventing it from rising freely. And he found that, in fact, the bubbles are not stuck at all – they are just moving very, very slowly.

Promoting the inclusion of people with disabilities calls for open dialogue with them. Robert Riener says that talking about technology helps to break the ice.

Crafty engineering can help solve many problems, including those we face in our own kitchens. At EPFL’s Institute of Mechanical Engineering, students from three laboratories tackled some of the most common kitchen challenges as part of the first Kitchen-Inspired Engineering contest.

This year Renana Gershoni-Poranne was awarded a Branco Weiss Fellowship. The ETH chemist will use the research grant to design innovative compounds that can be used in future generations of electronic devices.

400 secondary school students visited the winner of the 2018 Fields Medal, Alessio Figalli. You don't have to be a genius to do mathematics, said Figalli.

The Zurich Climate Strike Student Working Group is calling for universities to tackle climate change and accelerate the shift to sustainability. In this interview, Reto Knutti, ETH Delegate for Sustainability, explains how ETH Zurich supports the students’ initiative and how they can get involved.

Besides research and consultancy, teaching is the third major aspect of Eawag’s work. Around 140 master’s students are supervised every year at the Institute, some of whom are directly involved in research projects. This integration of teaching and learning, along with the flat hierarchies and Eawag’s interdisciplinary culture together create a unique environment that is greatly valued by students and supervisors alike, and which results again and again in outstanding master’s dissertations.

Ebola is a deadly viral infection that has so far mainly been present in Central and West Africa. Many people in those regions are either unfamiliar with the disease, do not believe in it, or don’t know how to prevent infection. For this reason, UNICEF was active in The Gambia, West Africa, among other places, between 2014 and 2016, running information campaigns on how to prevent the spread of Ebola.

Summer series – student projects – Two dozen EPFL Master’s students recently took part in a unique race where the competitors were tandems of students and robots. This challenge put the students’ programming skills to the test, in pursuit of enhanced methods of human-machine interaction.

The 11^th World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ) is being held in Lausanne this week, attracting some 1,200 visitors to our city. As one of the event’s partner universities, EPFL is proud to be hosting the WCSJ at its SwissTech Convention Center. We spoke with Olivier Dessibourg, head of the organizing team and president of the Swiss Association of Science Journalists, about what he hopes the event will achieve.

In its latest report, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity (IPBES) IPBES warns of the massive consequences of biodiversity loss. Florian Altermatt explains in a video interview why aquatic communities are particularly affected.