Mission

Design and optimisation of communal and industrial wastewater and drinking water treatment plants.

Biography

Michael grew up in Eastern Switzerland apart from an exchange year in Canterbury, England. He moved to Lausanne to study Chemistry at EPFL. His interests in water and wastewater treatment started with a masters project, developing carbon-doped TiO2 photocatalysts to degrade stable organic molecules with sunlight. He completed this work under the supervision of K. Ravindranathan Thampi in the lab of Michael Grätzel. At the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) he investigated the use of bone char and contact precipitation for drinking water defluoridation. Subsequently, he implemented these water treatment techniques in Ethiopia, as a employee of the Swiss Interchurch Aid (HEKS/EPER). After returning from Africa, Michael pursued a PhD in the field of virus inactivation during water and wastewater treatment under the supervision of Tamar Kohn in the Environmental Chemistry Laboratory (LCE) at EPFL. In 2014, Michael started to work as a process engineer for HOLINGER SA in the field of (communal and industrial) wastewater and drinking water treatment.
Throughout his life Michael travelled extensively all around the globe; he has lived on three continents and visited over 60 countries, is perfectly fluent in four languages (German, French, English and Spanish) and has good knowledge of two more (Italian and Portuguese). He enjoys outdoor sports, like mountaineering and running.