2012-01-09
To the turn of the year professor Domenico Giardini stepped back from the leadership of the SED. Until a permanent replacement is in place the Executive Board of the ETH nominated Stefan Wiemer as ad interim director of the SED.
Read more...Since 1997, Domenico Giardini is Professor of Seismology and Geodynamics and was also Director of the Swiss Seismological Service, operated by the ETH on behalf of the Federal Government. During these years, he has coordinated numerous international research projects, and acted as a scientific expert on various National Commissions dealing with earthquake safety in urban areas and for critical infrastructures. He currently is the President of the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth‘s Interior (IASPEI).
Domenico Giardini, who completed his Doctoral Studies at the University of Bologna, left the SED at the end of 2011, but will continue to serve as Professor for Seismology and Geodynamics at the ETH Zürich. "Domenico Giardini is one of the most recognised seismologist internationally and is largely responsible for the reputation of the Swiss Seismological Service as a centre of excellence for research as well as a crucial service for the Swiss public“, honored Roland Siegwart, the Vice President for Research and Corporate Relations at the ETH Zürich.
Until a permanently replacement is in place, Professor Stefan Wiemer will be the interim SED Director. Born in Germany in 1967, Stefan Wiemer was educated in Bochum and earned his PhD in 1996 at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska. He is at the SED since 1999 and for the past years has led the Earthquake Statistics group and has been Coordinator of the Hazard Center. In 2004, Stefan Wiemer and Domenico Giardini, together with a team from the SED, developed the current Swiss Earthquake Hazard Map, a critical tool for the risk management of Switzerland. Wiemer’s key research interests include induced seismicity and time dependent earthquake hazard, addressing the question of how can microseismicity be used to improved earthquake forecasts.