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100 Notable alumni of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

Updated: June 23, 2026 EliteDegrees

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich is ranked #52 in the world and #1 in Switzerland by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff. Many individuals affiliated with Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich won Nobel Prizes for Peace, in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Economics.

Albert Heim

1. Albert Heim

1849-1937 (aged 88)
university teacher geologist non-fiction writer
Albert Heim was a Swiss geologist, noted for his three-volume Geologie der Schweiz.
Walther Ritz

2. Walther Ritz

1878-1909 (aged 31)
physicist mathematician
Walther Heinrich Wilhelm Ritz was a Swiss theoretical physicist. He is most famous for his work with Johannes Rydberg on the Rydberg–Ritz combination principle. Ritz is also known for the variational method named after him, the Ritz method.
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Lino Guzzella

3. Lino Guzzella

1957-. (aged 69)
engineer university teacher
Lino Guzzella is a Swiss-Italian professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. He has been a full Professor of Thermotronics in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at the institute for dynamic systems and control (IDSC) since 1999. In his research, Lino Guzzella works on modelling and model-assisted optimisation and control of energy technology and...
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Bastien Girod

4. Bastien Girod

1980-. (aged 46)
politician
Bastien Girod is a Swiss sustainability researcher, corporate and industry advisor and politician who serves as a member of the National Council for the Green Party since 2007. In August 2024, Girod announced to step back from office, and designated Meret Schneider as his successor.
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Arthur Stoll

5. Arthur Stoll

1887-1971 (aged 84)
art collector biochemist chemist university teacher
Arthur Stoll was a Swiss biochemist.
Konrad Steffen

6. Konrad Steffen

1952-2020 (aged 68)
glaciologist university teacher
Konrad "Koni" Steffen was a Swiss glaciologist, known for his research into the impact of global warming on the Arctic.
Christian Kerez

7. Christian Kerez

1962-. (aged 64)
university teacher architect photographer
Christian Georg Kerez is a Swiss architect, architectural photographer and professor.
Gion A. Caminada

8. Gion A. Caminada

1957-. (aged 69)
university teacher architect
Gion Antoni Caminada is a Swiss architect and professor of architecture at the ETH Zurich. He is known for his works in and around the Swiss village of Vrin, including the Stiva da morts mortuary. Many of Caminada's projects are built of wood in a minimalist style mixing modern design with traditional Swiss methods and materials.
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Pierre de Meuron

9. Pierre de Meuron

1950-. (aged 76)
university teacher architect
Pierre de Meuron is a Swiss architect and co-founder, alongside Jacques Herzog, of the architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron.
Claude Bourdet

10. Claude Bourdet

1909-1996 (aged 87)
writer French resistance fighter journalist
Claude Bourdet was a writer, journalist, polemist, and militant French politician.
Toni Rüttimann

11. Toni Rüttimann

1967-. (aged 59)
engineer civil engineer
Toni Rüttimann is a Swiss bridge builder who works in Southeast Asia and Latin America, where he is known as "Toni el Suizo" (Toni the Swiss).
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Pierre Weiss

12. Pierre Weiss

1865-1940 (aged 75)
physicist university teacher
Pierre-Ernest Weiss was a French physicist who specialized in magnetism. He developed the domain theory of ferromagnetism in 1907. Weiss domains and the Weiss magneton are named after him. Weiss also developed the molecular or mean field theory, which is often called Weiss-mean-field theory, that led to the discovery of the Curie–Weiss law. Alongside Auguste Piccard, Pierre Weiss is considered...
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Jean-Louis Jeanmaire

13. Jean-Louis Jeanmaire

1910-1992 (aged 82)
university teacher military officer
Jean-Louis Jeanmaire was a brigadier in the Swiss army who passed highly classified Swiss military secrets to the Soviet Union from 1962 until his retirement in 1975.
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Christian Menn

14. Christian Menn

1927-2018 (aged 91)
civil engineer
Christian Menn was a renowned Swiss civil engineer and bridge designer. He was involved in the construction of around 100 bridges worldwide, but the focus of his work was in eastern Switzerland, especially in canton Graubünden. He continued the tradition of and had a decisive influence on Swiss bridge building. The technical and aesthetic possibilities of prestressed concrete were most...
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Boris Pavlovich Belousov

15. Boris Pavlovich Belousov

1893-1970 (aged 77)
chemist biophysicist physicist
Boris Pavlovich Belousov was a Soviet chemist and biophysicist who discovered the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction (BZ reaction) in the early 1950s. His work initiated the field of modern nonlinear chemical dynamics.
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Stefanos Manos

16. Stefanos Manos

1939-. (aged 87)
politician
Stefanos Manos is a Greek politician, former member of the Hellenic Parliament, and a former government minister.
Einat Kalisch-Rotem

17. Einat Kalisch-Rotem

1970-. (aged 56)
urban planner architect politician
Einat Kalisch-Rotem is an Israeli urban planner and politician who served as mayor of Haifa from 2018 to 2024. She was the first female mayor to lead any of the three major cities in Israel.
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August Kundt

18. August Kundt

1839-1894 (aged 55)
physicist university teacher
August Adolf Eduard Eberhard Kundt was a German physicist known for developing Kundt's tube, an appartus used to measure the speed of sound in gases and solids.
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David Ruelle

19. David Ruelle

1935-. (aged 91)
physicist mathematician
David Pierre Ruelle is a Belgian and naturalized French mathematical physicist. He has worked on statistical physics and dynamical systems. With Floris Takens, Ruelle coined the term strange attractor, and developed a new theory of turbulence.
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Ernst Schröder

20. Ernst Schröder

1841-1902 (aged 61)
mathematician university teacher
Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Ernst Schröder was a German mathematician mainly known for his work on algebraic logic. He is a major figure in the history of mathematical logic, by virtue of summarizing and extending the work of George Boole, Augustus De Morgan, Hugh MacColl, and especially Charles Peirce. He is best known for his monumental Vorlesungen über die Algebra der...
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Armand Borel

21. Armand Borel

1923-2003 (aged 80)
university teacher mathematician topologist
Armand Borel was a Swiss mathematician, born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and was a permanent professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, United States from 1957 to 1993. He worked in algebraic topology, in the theory of Lie groups, and was one of the creators of the contemporary theory of linear algebraic groups.
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Albert Eschenmoser

22. Albert Eschenmoser

1925-2023 (aged 98)
university teacher chemist
Albert Jakob Eschenmoser was a Swiss organic chemist, best known for his work on the synthesis of complex heterocyclic natural compounds, most notably vitamin B12. In addition to his significant contributions to the field of organic synthesis, Eschenmoser pioneered work in the Origins of Life (OoL) field with work on the synthetic pathways of artificial nucleic acids. Before retiring in...
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André Blattmann

23. André Blattmann

1956-. (aged 70)
military officer
André Blattmann was the Swiss Lieutenant General and Chief of the Armed Forces from 1 March 2009 (ad interim since 20 August 2008) until 31 December 2016. He led the Swiss army after the leave of Roland Nef ad interim on 25 July 2008.
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Christophe Darbellay

24. Christophe Darbellay

1971-. (aged 55)
politician
Christophe Darbellay is a Swiss politician who is member of The Centre.
Paul Scherrer

25. Paul Scherrer

1890-1969 (aged 79)
physicist crystallographer university teacher nuclear physicist
Paul Hermann Scherrer was a Swiss physicist. Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, he studied at Göttingen, Germany, before becoming a lecturer there. Later, Scherrer became head of the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich.
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Robert Maillart

26. Robert Maillart

1872-1940 (aged 68)
civil engineer architect structural engineer
Robert Maillart was a Swiss civil engineer who revolutionized the use of structural reinforced concrete with such designs as the three-hinged arch and the deck-stiffened arch for bridges, and the beamless floor slab and mushroom ceiling for industrial buildings. His Salginatobel (1929–1930) and Schwandbach (1933) bridges changed the aesthetics and engineering of bridge construction dramatically and influenced decades of architects...
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John Houbolt

27. John Houbolt

1919-2014 (aged 95)
engineer military flight engineer
John Cornelius Houbolt was an aerospace engineer credited with leading the team behind the lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) mission mode, a concept that was used to successfully land humans on the Moon and return them to Earth. This flight path was chosen for the Apollo program in July 1962. The critical decision to use LOR was viewed as vital to...
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Jacques Herzog

28. Jacques Herzog

1950-. (aged 76)
architect
Jacques Herzog is a Swiss architect and a founding partner along with Pierre de Meuron of the architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron. Some of the most well-known projects by Herzog & de Meuron include the conversion of the Bankside Power Station into the Tate Modern in London, the Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg, and the Beijing National Stadium, also...
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Kaspar Villiger

29. Kaspar Villiger

1941-. (aged 85)
author mechanical engineer politician
Kaspar Villiger is a Swiss businessman, former tobacco manufacturer and politician. He served as a member of the Federal Council (Switzerland) since 1 February 1989 for The Liberals. Villiger served two terms as President of the Swiss Confederation in 1995 and again in 2002. He previously served on the Council of States (Switzerland) from 1987 to 1989 and on the...
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Kazys Škirpa

30. Kazys Škirpa

1895-1979 (aged 84)
diplomat politician university teacher
Kazys Škirpa was a Lithuanian military officer and diplomat. He founded the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), which attempted to establish Lithuanian independence in June 1941.
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Friedrich Adler

31. Friedrich Adler

1879-1960 (aged 81)
politician physicist journalist philosopher translator
Friedrich Wolfgang "Fritz" Adler was an Austrian socialist politician, physicist, philosopher and journalist. He is perhaps best known for his assassination of Minister-President Karl von Stürgkh in 1916.
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Corine Mauch

32. Corine Mauch

1960-. (aged 66)
politician
Corine Mauch is an American-born Swiss politician who currently serves as Mayor of Zurich since 2009. She previously served on the city council of Zürich between 1999 and 2008 for the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (of which she was a member since 1990). Mauch is the first female and first openly lesbian person to be elected mayor of the...
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Walter Ruttmann

33. Walter Ruttmann

1887-1941 (aged 54)
painter cinematographer screenwriter illustrator animator
Walter Ruttmann was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for directing the semi-documentary 'city symphony' silent film, with orchestral score by Edmund Meisel, in 1927, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis. His audio montage Wochenende (Weekend) (1930) is considered a major...
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Karl Alexander Müller

34. Karl Alexander Müller

1927-2023 (aged 96)
physicist university teacher
Karl Alexander Müller was a Swiss physicist and Nobel laureate. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1987 with Georg Bednorz for their work in superconductivity in ceramic materials.
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Felix Finkbeiner

35. Felix Finkbeiner

1997-. (aged 29)
blogger conservationist non-fiction writer
Felix Finkbeiner is a German environmentalist and the founder of the international tree-planting and environmental advocacy organization Plant-for-the-Planet.
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Georg Bednorz

36. Georg Bednorz

1950-. (aged 76)
physicist
Johannes Georg Bednorz is a German physicist who, together with K. Alex Müller, discovered high-temperature superconductivity in ceramics, for which they shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physics.
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Mete Atatüre

37. Mete Atatüre

1975-. (aged 51)
physicist researcher
Mete Atatüre is a Turkish physicist working on experimental solid-state quantum optics, in particular on the optical control of spin-photon coupling for quantum networks as well as investigation of many-body physics in atomically-thin heterostructures, with the aim of developing new materials and devices for quantum sensing applications.
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Géza Maróczy

38. Géza Maróczy

1870-1951 (aged 81)
chess player hydraulic engineer non-fiction writer
Géza Maróczy was a Hungarian chess player, one of the leading players in the world in his time. He was one of the inaugural recipients of the International Grandmaster title from FIDE in 1950.
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Valerio Olgiati

39. Valerio Olgiati

1958-. (aged 68)
university teacher architect
Valerio Olgiati is a Swiss architect. His projects include the School Building in Paspels and the Yellow House Museum in Flims.
Urs Hölzle

40. Urs Hölzle

computer scientist
Urs Hölzle is a Swiss-American software engineer and technology executive. As Google's eighth employee and its first VP of Engineering, he has shaped much of Google's development processes and infrastructure, as well as its engineering culture. His most notable contributions include leading the development of fundamental cloud infrastructure such as energy-efficient data centers, distributed compute and storage systems, and software-defined...
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Marcel Janco

41. Marcel Janco

1895-1984 (aged 89)
illustrator designer architect writer engraver
Marcel Janco was a Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect and art theorist. He was the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading exponent of Constructivism in Eastern Europe. In the 1910s, he co-edited, with Ion Vinea and Tristan Tzara, the Romanian art magazine Simbolul. Janco was a practitioner of Art Nouveau, Futurism and Expressionism before contributing his painting and stage...
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Othmar Hermann Ammann

42. Othmar Hermann Ammann

1879-1965 (aged 86)
engineer structural engineer civil engineer architect
Othmar Hermann Ammann was a Swiss-American civil engineer whose bridge designs include the George Washington Bridge, Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge, and Bayonne Bridge. He also directed the planning and construction of the Lincoln Tunnel.
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Richard Ernst

43. Richard Ernst

1933-2021 (aged 88)
chemist
Richard Robert Ernst was a Swiss physical chemist and Nobel laureate.
Jacques Roumain

44. Jacques Roumain

1907-1944 (aged 37)
writer poet journalist politician
Jacques Roumain Encarnación was a Haitian writer, politician, and Marxist. He is considered one of the most prominent figures in Haitian literature. Langston Hughes translated some of Roumain's works, including Gouverneurs de la Rosée (Masters of the Dew), which was also adapted to film.
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Aldo van Eyck

45. Aldo van Eyck

1918-1999 (aged 81)
university teacher architect scenographer
Aldo van Eyck was a Dutch architect. He was one of the most influential protagonists of the architectural movement Structuralism.
Heinrich Rohrer

46. Heinrich Rohrer

1933-2013 (aged 80)
physicist
Heinrich Rohrer was a Swiss physicist who shared half of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics with Gerd Binnig for the design of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The other half of the Prize was awarded to Ernst Ruska. The Heinrich Rohrer Medal is presented triennially by the Surface Science Society of Japan with IBM Research – Zurich, Swiss Embassy...
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Albert Rösti

47. Albert Rösti

1967-. (aged 59)
politician
Albert Rösti is a Swiss businessman, lobbyist and politician who has been a Member of the Swiss Federal Council since 1 January 2023. He previously presided over the Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC) from 2016 to 2020 and served as a member of the National Council for the canton of Bern from 2011 until 2022. Rösti resides in Uetendorf near Thun.
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Bernard Tschumi

48. Bernard Tschumi

1944-. (aged 82)
architectural theoretician architect university teacher urban planner
Bernard Tschumi is an architect, writer, and educator, commonly associated with deconstructivism. Son of the well-known Swiss architect Jean Tschumi and a French mother, Tschumi is a dual French-Swiss national who works and lives in New York City and Paris. He studied in Paris and at ETH in Zurich, where he received his degree in architecture in 1969.
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Emma Pooley

49. Emma Pooley

1982-. (aged 44)
triathlete marathon runner sport cyclist
Emma Jane Pooley is a British-Swiss athlete in multiple sports. A former professional cyclist who specialised in time trials and hilly races, she later transferred to endurance running, duathlon and triathlon, and was four-times world champion in long-distance duathlon. She competes in long-distance and uphill mountain running and has represented Switzerland at the world trailrunning championships.
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Hendrik Petrus Berlage

50. Hendrik Petrus Berlage

1856-1934 (aged 78)
urban planner draftsperson urban designer painter art theorist
Hendrik Petrus Berlage was a Dutch architect and designer. He is considered one of the fathers of the architecture of the Amsterdam School.
Ivan Morozov

51. Ivan Morozov

1871-1921 (aged 50)
art collector businessperson
Ivan Abramovich Morozov was a Russian businessman and, from 1907 to 1914, a major collector of avant-garde French art.
Ferdinand Georg Frobenius

52. Ferdinand Georg Frobenius

1849-1917 (aged 68)
mathematician university teacher
Ferdinand Georg Frobenius was a German mathematician, best known for his contributions to the theory of elliptic functions, differential equations, number theory, and to group theory. He is known for the famous determinantal identities, known as Frobenius–Stickelberger formulae, governing elliptic functions, and for developing the theory of biquadratic forms. He was also the first to introduce the notion of rational...
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Martin Odersky

53. Martin Odersky

1958-. (aged 68)
computer scientist engineer professor programmer
Martin Odersky is a German computer scientist and professor of programming methods at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. He specializes in code analysis and programming languages. He spearheaded the design of Scala and Generic Java (and Pizza before).
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Fritz Zwicky

54. Fritz Zwicky

1898-1974 (aged 76)
astrophysicist astronomer physicist university teacher
Fritz Zwicky was a Swiss astronomer. He worked most of his life at the California Institute of Technology in the United States of America, where he made many important contributions in theoretical and observational astronomy. He was the first to propose supernovas as giant explosions at the end of a star's life, and neutron stars as the remnants left over...
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Maurice Koechlin

55. Maurice Koechlin

1856-1946 (aged 90)
civil engineer engineer non-fiction writer
Maurice Koechlin was a Franco-Swiss structural engineer from the Koechlin family.
Johann Schneider-Ammann

56. Johann Schneider-Ammann

1952-. (aged 74)
industrialist engineer politician
Johann Niklaus Schneider, colloquially Johann Schneider-Ammann, is a Swiss businessman, electrical engineer and politician who most notably served as President of Switzerland in 2016, and concurrently as a member of the Federal Council (Switzerland) for The Liberals.
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Simon Ammann

57. Simon Ammann

1981-. (aged 45)
alpine skier ski jumper
Simon Ammann is a Swiss ski jumper. He is one of the most successful athletes in the history of the sport, having won four individual Winter Olympic gold medals in 2002 and 2010. His other achievements include winning the 2007 Ski Jumping World Championships, the 2010 Ski Flying World Championships, the 2010 Nordic Tournament, and the 2010 Ski Jumping World...
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Niklaus Wirth

58. Niklaus Wirth

1934-2024 (aged 90)
university teacher computer scientist engineer inventor programmer
Niklaus Emil Wirth was a Swiss computer scientist. He designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Turing Award, generally recognized as the highest distinction in computer science, "for developing a sequence of innovative computer languages".
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Carlos Kleiber

59. Carlos Kleiber

1930-2004 (aged 74)
conductor
Carlos Kleiber was a German-born Austrian conductor, who is widely regarded as among the greatest conductors of all time. The son of the conductor Erich Kleiber, he was particularly known for the Romantic repertoire. John Rockwell writes: "A fabled perfectionist, he demanded long hours of rehearsal as his reputation grew and allowed him to obtain such concessions. But he made...
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Hansjörg Wyss

60. Hansjörg Wyss

1935-. (aged 91)
philanthropist investor businessperson entrepreneur
Johann Georg "Hansjörg" Wyss is a Swiss billionaire businessman and donor to politically liberal and environmental causes in the United States. He is the founder and former president and chairman of Synthes, a medical device manufacturer. His Wyss Foundation has nearly $2 billion in assets.
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Hans Albert Einstein

61. Hans Albert Einstein

1904-1973 (aged 69)
engineer physicist teacher university teacher
Hans Albert Einstein was a Swiss-American engineer, the second child and first son of physicists Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić. He was a long-time professor of hydraulic engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Ferdinand Piëch

62. Ferdinand Piëch

1937-2019 (aged 82)
mechanical engineer industrialist university teacher engineer inventor
Ferdinand Karl Piëch was an Austrian business magnate, engineer, and executive who held the positions of chairman of the executive board (Vorstandsvorsitzender) of the Volkswagen Group from 1993 to 2002, and chairman of the supervisory board (Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender) from 2002 to 2015.
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Naguib Sawiris

63. Naguib Sawiris

1954-. (aged 72)
politician entrepreneur diplomat businessperson film producer
Naguib Onsi Sawiris is an Egyptian-Grenadian billionaire businessman. He is the chairman of Orascom Investment Holding and the former chairman and CEO of Orascom Telecom Holding.
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Charles Édouard Guillaume

64. Charles Édouard Guillaume

1861-1938 (aged 77)
physicist researcher
Charles-Édouard Guillaume was a Swiss physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1920 "for the service he had rendered to precision measurements in physics by his discovery of anomalies in nickel steel alloys". In 1919, he gave the fifth Guthrie Lecture at the Institute of Physics in London with the title "The Anomaly of the Nickel-Steels".
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Marcel Grossmann

65. Marcel Grossmann

1878-1936 (aged 58)
mathematician university teacher
Marcel Grossmann was a Swiss mathematician who was a friend and classmate of Albert Einstein. Grossmann came from an old Swiss family in Zürich. His father managed a textile factory. He became a Professor of Mathematics at the Federal Polytechnic School in Zürich, today the ETH Zurich, specializing in descriptive geometry.
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Michele Besso

66. Michele Besso

1873-1955 (aged 82)
mathematician engineer
Michele Angelo Besso was a Swiss-Italian engineer who worked closely with Albert Einstein.
Alfred Werner

67. Alfred Werner

1866-1919 (aged 53)
university teacher chemist
Alfred Werner was a Swiss chemist who was a student at ETH Zurich and a professor at the University of Zurich. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1913 for proposing the octahedral configuration of transition metal complexes. Werner developed the basis for modern coordination chemistry. He was the first inorganic chemist to win the Nobel Prize, and the...
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Max Frisch

68. Max Frisch

1911-1991 (aged 80)
novelist writer philosopher playwright architect
Max Rudolf Frisch was a Swiss playwright and novelist. Frisch's works focused on problems of identity, individuality, responsibility, morality, and political commitment. The use of irony is a significant feature of his post-war output. Frisch was one of the founders of Gruppe Olten. He was awarded the 1965 Jerusalem Prize, the 1973 Grand Schiller Prize, and the 1986 Neustadt International...
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Albert Einstein

69. Albert Einstein

1879-1955 (aged 76)
physicist
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum theory. His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc, which arises from special relativity, has been called "the world's most famous equation". He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for "his services to theoretical physics, and especially for...
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Aurelio Galfetti

70. Aurelio Galfetti

1936-2021 (aged 85)
university teacher architect
Aurelio Galfetti was a Swiss architect.
Martin Vetterli

71. Martin Vetterli

1957-. (aged 69)
computer scientist researcher engineer professor
Martin Vetterli is a professor of engineering of École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, and was the former president of EPFL between 2017 and 2024. He was also formerly the president of the National Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
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Vincent Ducrot

72. Vincent Ducrot

1962-. (aged 64)
manager
Vincent Ducrot is a Swiss public transport executive. The electrical engineer specialised in information technology was the managing director of Transports publics Fribourgeois (TPF) from 2011 to 2020, before being named as the new CEO of Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) in December 2019. He took up the position on 1 April 2020. The engineer with expertise in project management spent...
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Corrado Böhm

73. Corrado Böhm

1923-2017 (aged 94)
university teacher logician computer scientist mathematician engineer
Corrado Böhm was an Italian computer scientist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Rome "La Sapienza", known especially for his contributions to the theory of structured programming, constructive mathematics, combinatory logic, lambda calculus, and the semantics and implementation of functional programming languages.
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Luigi Snozzi

74. Luigi Snozzi

1932-2020 (aged 88)
teacher architect
Luigi Snozzi was a Swiss architect, born in Mendrisio, Ticino. He worked in Locarno and Lugano.
Walter Thurnherr

75. Walter Thurnherr

1963-. (aged 63)
diplomat civil servant politician
Walter Thurnherr is a Swiss government official who served as Chancellor of Switzerland from 2016 to 2023. Although he holds a traditionally nonpartisan office, he was elected as a member of the Christian Democratic People's Party (CVP/PDC). When it merged with the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP/PBD) to form The Centre (DM/LC) in 2021, Thurnherr joined the new party.
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Tadeusz Reichstein

76. Tadeusz Reichstein

1897-1996 (aged 99)
chemist botanist botanical collector university teacher scientist
Tadeusz Reichstein, also known as Tadeus Reichstein, was a Polish-Swiss chemist and a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate (1950), which was awarded for his work on the isolation of cortisone.
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Kurt Wüthrich

77. Kurt Wüthrich

1938-. (aged 88)
university teacher biophysicist chemist
Kurt Wüthrich is a Swiss chemist/biophysicist and Nobel Chemistry laureate, known for developing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods for studying biological macromolecules.
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Werner Arber

78. Werner Arber

1929-. (aged 97)
physician geneticist biologist university teacher
Werner Arber is a Swiss microbiologist and geneticist. Along with American researchers Hamilton Smith and Daniel Nathans, Werner Arber shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction endonucleases. Their work would lead to the development of recombinant DNA technology.
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Auguste Piccard

79. Auguste Piccard

1884-1962 (aged 78)
university teacher balloonist physicist Privatdozent explorer
Auguste Antoine Piccard was a Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer known for his record-breaking hydrogen balloon flights, with which he studied the Earth's upper atmosphere and became the first person to enter the stratosphere. Piccard was also known for his invention of the first bathyscaphe, FNRS-2, with which he made a number of unmanned dives in 1948 to explore the...
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Klaus Schwab

80. Klaus Schwab

1938-. (aged 88)
economist pedagogue
Klaus Martin Schwab is a German mechanical engineer, economist, and founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF). He served as the WEF's chairman from 1971 until his resignation in 2025.
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Annemarie Huber-Hotz

81. Annemarie Huber-Hotz

1948-2019 (aged 71)
sociologist ethnologist politician
Annemarie Huber-Hotz was a Swiss politician who served as the Federal Chancellor of Switzerland between 2000 and 2007. She was nominated by the FDP for the office, and elected to it on 15 December 1999. In 2011, she became President of the Swiss Red Cross and ex officio vice-president of the IFRC.
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Santiago Calatrava

82. Santiago Calatrava

1951-. (aged 75)
architect structural engineer sculptor conservator civil engineer
Santiago Calatrava Valls is a Spanish-Swiss architect, structural engineer, sculptor and painter, particularly known for his bridges supported by single leaning pylons, and his railway stations, stadiums, and museums, whose sculptural forms often resemble living organisms. His best-known works include the Olympic Sports Complex of Athens, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Turning Torso tower in Malmö, Sweden, the World Trade...
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Nikola Pašić

83. Nikola Pašić

1845-1926 (aged 81)
diplomat politician
Nikola Pašić was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat. During his political career, which spanned almost five decades, he served five times as prime minister of Serbia and three times as prime minister of Yugoslavia, leading 22 governments in total. He played an instrumental role in the founding of Yugoslavia and is considered one of the most influential figures...
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Gabriel Narutowicz

84. Gabriel Narutowicz

1865-1922 (aged 57)
university teacher politician diplomat foreign minister civil engineer
Gabriel Józef Narutowicz was a Polish engineer and politician who served as the first president of Poland from 11 December 1922 until his assassination five days after assuming office. He previously served as the minister of public works from 1920 to 1922 and briefly as the minister of foreign affairs in 1922. A non-partisan and an engineer by profession, Narutowicz...
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Aurel Stodola

85. Aurel Stodola

1859-1942 (aged 83)
mechanical engineer inventor physicist university teacher
Aurel Boleslav Stodola was a Slovak engineer, physicist, and inventor. He was a pioneer in the area of technical thermodynamics and its applications and published his book Die Dampfturbine (the steam turbine) in 1903. In addition to the thermodynamic issues involved in turbine design the book discussed aspects of fluid flow, vibration, stress analysis of plates, shells and rotating discs...
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Felix Bloch

86. Felix Bloch

1905-1983 (aged 78)
university teacher nuclear physicist physicist
Felix Bloch was a Swiss-American theoretical physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics with Edward Mills Purcell "for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith".
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Nienke Brinkman

87. Nienke Brinkman

1993-. (aged 33)
marathon runner geophysicist long-distance runner trail runner
Nienke Brinkman is a Dutch long-distance runner, both on the road as well as on trails. She won the bronze medal in the marathon at the 2022 European Athletics Championships, which was her first international medal, and has a personal best of 2:22:51 which she ran at the Rotterdam Marathon.
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Peter Debye

88. Peter Debye

1884-1966 (aged 82)
scientist chemist theoretical physicist physicist university teacher
Peter Joseph William Debye ForMemRS was a Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate in Chemistry.
Friedrich Hirzebruch

89. Friedrich Hirzebruch

1927-2012 (aged 85)
university teacher mathematician professor of mathematics
Friedrich Ernst Peter Hirzebruch ForMemRS was a German mathematician, working in the fields of topology, complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and a leading figure in his generation. He has been described as "the most important mathematician in Germany of the postwar period."
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Georg Cantor

90. Georg Cantor

1845-1918 (aged 73)
university teacher mathematician philosopher
Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor was a mathematician who played a pivotal role in the creation of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are more numerous than the natural numbers. Cantor's method...
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Wilhelm Röntgen

91. Wilhelm Röntgen

1845-1923 (aged 78)
researcher engineer physicist professor
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a German experimental physicist who produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays (known as Röntgen rays in many languages). In 1901, Röntgen became the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after...
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Costin Nenițescu

92. Costin Nenițescu

1902-1970 (aged 68)
university teacher chemist
Costin D. Nenițescu (in some places Nenitzescu ( Romanian pronunciation: [kosˈtin neniˈt͡sesku]; 15 July 1902 – 28 July 1970) was a prominent Romanian chemist, and a professor at the Politehnica University of Bucharest. He was a titular member of the Romanian Academy, a corresponding member of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, and a member of the Leopoldina Academy...
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Carl von Linde

93. Carl von Linde

1842-1934 (aged 92)
engineer physicist entrepreneur university teacher
Carl Paul Gottfried von Linde was a German scientist, engineer, and businessman. He discovered the refrigeration cycle and invented the first industrial-scale air separation and gas liquefaction processes, which led to the first reliable and efficient compressed-ammonia refrigerator in 1876.
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Mileva Marić

94. Mileva Marić

1875-1948 (aged 73)
mathematician teacher physicist
Mileva Marić, sometimes called Mileva Marić-Einstein (Милева Марић-Ајнштајн, Mileva Marić-Ajnštajn), was the first wife of Albert Einstein from 1903 to 1919. She was the only woman among Einstein's fellow students at Zürich Polytechnic. Marić and Einstein were study colleagues and lovers, and had a daughter Lieserl in 1902, who likely died of scarlet fever at one and a half years...
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Fritz Haber

95. Fritz Haber

1868-1934 (aged 66)
engineer physicist chemist university teacher
Fritz Jakob Haber was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. This invention is important for the large-scale synthesis of fertilizers and explosives. It is estimated that a third of annual global food production...
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Hermann Staudinger

96. Hermann Staudinger

1881-1965 (aged 84)
university teacher organic chemist polymer chemist engineer chemist
Hermann Staudinger was a German organic chemist who demonstrated the existence of macromolecules, which he characterized as polymers. For this work he received the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
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Leopold Ružička

97. Leopold Ružička

1887-1976 (aged 89)
university teacher chemist
Leopold Ružička ForMemRS was a Croatian-Swiss scientist and joint winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes" "including the first chemical synthesis of male sex hormones." He worked most of his life in Switzerland, and received eight doctorates honoris causa in science, medicine, and law; seven prizes and medals; and twenty-four honorary...
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Philippe Kahn

98. Philippe Kahn

1952-. (aged 74)
computer scientist entrepreneur
Philippe Kahn is a French engineer, entrepreneur, and founder of four technology companies: Borland, Starfish Software, LightSurf Technologies, and Fullpower Technologies. Kahn is credited with creating the first camera phone, being a pioneer for wearable technology intellectual property, and is the author of dozens of technology patents covering Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) modeling, wearable, eyewear, smartphone, mobile,...
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Andreas Küttel

99. Andreas Küttel

1979-. (aged 47)
physical education teacher ski jumper
Andreas Küttel is a Swiss former ski jumper who currently works in the field of sports science at the University of Southern Denmark.
Vladimir Prelog

100. Vladimir Prelog

1906-1998 (aged 92)
university teacher chemist engineer
Vladimir Prelog ForMemRS was a Croatian-Swiss organic chemist who received the 1975 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions. Prelog was born, and spent his infancy, in Sarajevo, and youth in Zagreb, Osijek and Prague. He later lived and worked in Prague, Zagreb and Zürich.
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