Wilfried Kurz was born in Leoben, Styria, Austria, in 1938. After attending High School at Leoben, he studied at Montanuniversität Leoben. In 1964, he joined the Battelle  Research Laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland, leading the physical metallurgy group. During this period, he received his doctorate from Montanuniversität Leoben and published his thesis, 'Ultrasonic Localisation of the Solid–Liquid Interface in Metals', in 1968. In 1971, he was appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Materials at EPFL, becoming a Full Professor of Physical Metallurgy in 1974. He directed the Laboratory of Physical Metallurgy and the Laser Materials Processing Centre until his statutory retirement in 2003.

In 1974, he helped establish Switzerland's first materials science degree programme at EPFL. He later served twice as Head of Department and, from 2001 to 2005, chaired EPFL’s Tenure Track Committee.

Kurz also worked to strengthen European collaboration in materials research. For example, he chaired the management committee of the COST Advanced Solidification and Casting Technology programme for industrial software development. In 1999, he joined the executive committee of the Federation of European Materials Societies (FEMS), serving as president from 2004 to 2005. In 2003, he chaired the important international EUROMAT congress in Lausanne.

From 2009 to 2017, he was a member of the Board of Governors of Acta Materialia Inc., USA, and served on the advisory committees of Montanuniversität Leoben and the Max Planck Institute for Iron Research in Düsseldorf, Germany. Furthermore, he contributed to the development of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) in Limassol, which was established in 2004. 

Research

Kurz’s research elucidates the growth of microstructures, combining experiment and theory. He has examined dendritic, peritectic and eutectic solidification, micro‑segregation and solid‑state transformation kinetics, collaborating closely with Rohit Trivedi of Iowa State University.

He has also investigated solidification‑processing techniques including continuous casting of steel, welding, laser treatment, rapid solidification, single‑crystal casting, directional solidification and epitaxial single‑crystal laser repair. His work underpins microstructure modelling in additive manufacturing.

Awards and recognition

Bruce Chalmers Award of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, USA

European Materials Medal of FEMS, Europe

Médaille Bastien Guillet, Société Française de Métallurgie et des Matériaux (SF2M), France

ISI Highly Cited Researcher

Heyn Memorial Medal of the German Society for Materials Science, Germany

Luigi Losana Gold Medal of the Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia, Italy

Albert Sauveur Achievement Award of ASM International, USA

John Hunt Medal, IoM3 – The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, London, UK

Visiting professor at Brunel University London, UK

Honorary Member, Iron and Steel Institute of Japan

Corresponding member, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria

Selected publications

Books