Scientific Advisory Board

Chair

President of AEE SUISSE, the Swiss umbrella organisation of the economy for renewable energies and energy efficiency; owner of Operto AG for clean-energy consulting, Ebmatingen, Switzerland

Gianni Operto is an expert in innovative technologies for renewable energies and their translation to market applications; he also advises on company establishment in this area. Following his studies in mechanical engineering at ETH Zurich, he then completed a management course at the London Business School. At the start of his career, he worked for ABB in numerous countries. After taking up employment at the City of Zurich electric supply company, he introduced a business strategy in the mid-1990s that prioritised renewable energies. He then shifted his interests to finance. He co-founded Nextech Venture AG, a company that supported start-up companies in the area of energy and environmental technologies with capital and expertise, he helped set up SAM Private Equity, and at Good Energies, he took on responsibility for the “future technologies” investment area. In 2011, he established Cleantech, his own energy consulting company. Gianni Operto is a member of several management and advisory boards, including the steering committee of the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research and the start-ups greenTEG and NexWafe.

Member

President of Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences, Halle (Saale); director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany; professor at ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Gerald Haug is palaeoclimatologist, palaeoceanographer and marine geologist. His research interests include the development of the earth’s climate over the past thousands to millions of years; causes of climate changes; dynamics of climate systems; and interactions between climate and advanced civilisations of the past. In 2020, Gerald Haug was named president of Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences, where he has been a member since 2012. Leopoldina unites 1 600 leading researchers from over 30 countries. In 2007, Gerald Haug was appointed full professor for climate geochemistry at the Department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich, where he also earned his professorial qualification. Since 2015, he has also been director of the Department of Climate Geochemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society. He is chair or member of various governing bodies, including the Alfred Wegener Institute/Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Swiss Polar Institute. Gerald Haug has received numerous distinctions for his work.

Member

Former President of the Leibniz Association, an organisation that connects 96 independent research institutions, Berlin, Germany

Matthias Kleiner holds a doctorate and the professorial title in mechanical engineering; he is specialised in lightweight construction and forming technology, including their digital methodologies. In 1994, he established the professorial chair for construction and manufacturing at Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus, where he served as vice president. He was awarded the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation in 1997. In 1998, he moved to TU Dortmund University, where he established the Institute of Forming Technology and Lightweight Construction and was dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. In 2007, he was elected president of the German Research Foundation. He co-founded Science Europe and the Global Research Council and was member of the European Research Council’s Scientific Council. In 2011, he chaired the ethics commission for safe energy supply in Germany. He is member of numerous national as well as international academies and serves on scientific and management bodies and boards; in addition, he is a juror and expert for research programmes and bi- and multilateral collaborations. He served as full-time president of the Leibniz Association from 2014 to 2022.

Member

Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Germany; Member of Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences, Halle (Saale), Germany

Bernd Pichler, electrotechnical engineer with a specialisation in biomedicine, investigates multimodal imaging techniques and detector physics; he also conducts pure research in biomedicine, specifically in oncology, neurology, immunology, infectious diseases and radiochemistry. In 2008, he was named director of the Werner Siemens Imaging Center and the Department of Preclinical Imaging and Radiopharmacy at the University of Tübingen, where he combined the medical imaging techniques of PET and MR to facilitate precise diagnostics and individual therapeutics, especially for patients with tumours. Bernd Pichler has received numerous awards and grants. He is a member of the most important associations and bodies in his field, including the Council of the European Society for Molecular Imaging. He has been a member of Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences, since 2017. In 2020, Bernd Pichler was elected dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tübingen.

Member

Vice President of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences; Senior Technologist Europe at Hamamatsu Photonics, Japan; professor at EPFL, Switzerland

Peter Seitz is a physicist specialised in semiconductors; he earned his doctorate at ETH Zurich in the area of biomedical technology. He conducted research at the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, NJ, USA, and during a ten-year period, he established the area of semiconductor image sensors and optical measurement systems at the Paul Scherrer Institute. Afterwards, he took on various roles as head of research at the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), including the position of vice president of photonics and vice president of nanomedicine; he also was instrumental in establishing the CSEM branch in Silicon Valley. During this time, Peter Seitz was also associate professor for optoelectronics at the University of Neuchâtel; he has held the same position at EPFL since 1997. In 2012, he began establishing the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Lab at ETH Zurich. Peter Seitz is author or co-author of over 200 scientific publications, is owner or co-owner of over 70 patents on inventions and co-founder of 6 high-tech start-ups. He and his teams have received 22 international awards and honours.