Congratulations to all graduates

Director of Studies Prof. Manfred Sigrist and Head of Department Prof. Rainer Wallny welcomed the graduates and their guests in the Auditorium Maximum of the ETH main building.

In his commemorative speech, Alumnus Lorenz Meier discussed his path from the Department of Physics at ETH — he graduated in 2003 and obtained his PhD there in 2007 — to his own company. A defining moment was when he worked as a scientific staff member at the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, where he experienced first hand the impact of natural disasters. This led to hom co-founding, in 2011, Geoprevent, a company that develops monitoring and alarm systems for natural hazards, based on radar measurements of ground movements. His career beautifully illustrates, how a physics background enables curious minds to explore new territory, and that one's path can take unexpected turns.

One of the new graduates then looked back on her time at ETH. In an entertaining talk, Pascale Berner summarized her studies in words — and in numbers:

• 5 years
• 277 Credit Points
• 17 written exams
• 11 oral exams
• 24 reports
• 10 presentations
• 98 cm lecture notes, exercises and scripts

Finally, the graduates of the Department of Physics received their certificates. In addition, two graduates were awarded the Silver Medal of ETH Zurich for their outstanding Master's theses:

• Valerio Peri for his Master's thesis "Axial field induced chiral channels in an acoustic Weyl system" under the supervision of Dr. Sebstian Huber; and
  
• Christian Carisch for his Master's thesis "Operator Space Entanglement Spectrum of Mixed States — An Anderson Localization Case Study" under the supervision of Prof. Oded Zilberberg.

The Willi Studer Prize for the best graduate of this year's Master's degree programme in physics went to Pascale Berner.