Research Areas
The Risk Center focuses on cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research projects integrating expertise within the Center as well as generally across ETH in order to tackle “real” world risk-related problems. Combining competences from the natural, engineering, social economic, and political sciences, bridging methods, and overcoming fragmentation is the main goal of the Center.
The joint expertise of the members allows contributing to the following research areas:
PROF. DR. DAVID N. BRESCH
Professor for Weather and Climate Risks (D-USYS)
David Bresch focuses on the impacts of weather and climate on socio-economic systems. His research aims to explore ways to strengthen resilience based on understanding weather and climate susceptibility and to adequately treat uncertainty in decision-making.
PROF. DR. DAVID BASIN
Chair for Information Security (D-INFK)
David Basin‘s research focuses on information security, in particular methods and tools for modeling, building, and validating secure and reliable systems.
PROF. DR. KENNETH PATERSON
Applied Cryptography Group (D-INFK)
Kenny Paterson's research is mostly in the area of Cryptography, with a strong emphasis on the analysis of deployed cryptographic systems and the development of provably secure solutions to real-world cryptographic problems. He co-founded the Real World Cryptography series of workshops to support the development of this broad area and to strengthen the links between academia and industry. He is co-chair of the IRTF's research group on Cryptography, CFRG. This group is working to provide expert advice to the IETF in an effort to strengthen the Internet's core security protocols.
PROF. DR. ANTOINE BOMMIER
Chair of Integrative Risk Management and Economics (D-MTEC)
Antoine Bommier works on the economic analysis of interdependent risks and risks with long-term consequences. This involves the development of methods to analyze the cost of such risks and to initiate innovative strategies to mitigate them and develop efficient insurance schemes.
PROF. DR. CHRISTOPH HÖLSCHER
Chair of Cognitive Science (D-GESS)
Christoph Hölscher studies the complex interaction of humans and their physical, technical and social environment with an emphasis on cognitive processes and task-oriented behavior.
PROF. DR. DAVID N. BRESCH
Professor for Weather and Climate Risks (D-USYS)
David Bresch focuses on the impacts of weather and climate on socio-economic systems. His research aims to explore ways to strengthen resilience based on understanding weather and climate susceptibility and to adequately treat uncertainty in decision-making.
PROF. DR. STEFAN WIEMER
Chair of Seismology and Director, Swiss Seismological Service (D-ERDW)
Stefan Wiemer is professor of seismology and heads the Swiss Seismological Service (SED). The SED at ETH Zurich is the federal agency responsible for monitoring earthquakes and assessing the seismic hazard of Switzerland.
PROF. DR. PATRICK CHERIDITO
Professor of Mathematics (D-MATH)
Patrick Cheridito’s main research interest is the analysis of stochastic models and their applications to insurance mathematics, quantitative risk management, mathematical finance and economics.
PROF. DR. JOSEF TEICHMANN
Professor of Mathematics, Stochastic Finance Group (D-MATH)
In recent work Josef Teichmann and his co-authors develop machine learning tools for the financial industry. Deep hedging, for instance, is a project conducted jointly with investment bankers, where generic hedging tasks are solved by cutting edge machine learning technology in a fully realistic market environment, i.e. in the presence of market frictions and trading constraints. Further projects include deep calibration, deep simulation, and deep prediction. Theoretical foundations from approximation theory and stochastic analysis accompany successful concrete implementations to make such approaches eligible for industry applications.
PROF. DR. DIDIER SORNETTE
Chair of Entrepreneurial Risks (D-MTEC)
Didier Sornette researches on the prediction of crises and extreme events in complex systems. Applications include the ex-ante diagnosis of financial bubbles and crashes, earthquake physics and geophysics, the failure of engineered structures, successes in social networks, etc.
PROF. DR. ANTOINE BOMMIER
Chair of Integrative Risk Management and Economics (D-MTEC)
Antoine Bommier works on the economic analysis of interdependent risks and risks with long-term consequences. This involves the development of methods to analyze the cost of such risks and to initiate innovative strategies to mitigate them and develop efficient insurance schemes.
PROF. DR. HANS GERSBACH
Chair of Macroeconomics: Innovation and Policy (D-MTEC)
Hans Gersbach analyzes new designs for the financial architecture and for fiscal and monetary policy-making, to deal with systemic risks. For this purpose, he embeds models of banking, systemic risk, and politics into new macroeconomic models, to examine their possible consequences.
PROF. DR. OLGA FINK
external pageChair of Intelligent Maintenance and Operations Systemscall_made (EPFL)
Olga Fink develops intelligent algorithms that improve performance, reliability and availability of complex industrial assets and make their maintenance more cost efficient. Her research focuses on Data‐Driven Condition‐Based and Predictive Maintenance, Deep Learning and Decision Support Algorithms for Fault Detection, Diagnostics and Prognostics of Complex Industrial Assets.
PROF. DR. HANS GERSBACH
Chair of Macroeconomics: Innovation and Policy (D-MTEC)
Hans Gersbach analyzes new designs for the financial architecture and for fiscal and monetary policy-making, to deal with systemic risks. For this purpose, he embeds models of banking, systemic risk, and politics into new macroeconomic models, to examine their possible consequences.
PROF. DR. FRANCESCO CORMAN
Transport Systems (D-BAUG)
Francesco Corman holds the chair of Transport Systems at the Institute of Transport Planning and Systems. His main research interests are in the field of railway traffic control and management to reduce delays for the system and its users. This is achieved based on quantitative methods and operations research to transport sciences, especially on the operational perspective, public transport, railways and logistics.
PROF. DR. RICO ZENKLUSEN
Institute for Operations Research (D-MATH)
Rico Zenklusen is Associate Professor, Institute for Operations Research at the Department of Mathematics. He is interested in mathematical optimization techniques and their applications in various contexts, including operations research, large-scale optimization, online optimization, data analytics, and machine learning.
PROF. DR. LARS-ERIK CEDERMAN
Chair of International Conflict Research (D-GESS)
Lars-Erik Cederman’s main interests include computational and spatial modeling of macrohistorical processes featuring conflict, including nationalism, state-formation, integration and disintegration processes, and democratization.
PROF. DR. GIOVANNI SANSAVINI
Chair of Reliability and Risk Engineering (D-MAVT)
Giovanni Sansavini analyzes reliability and risk issues in large-scale interdependent technical networks. He develops hybrid modeling and simulation approaches to quantify reliability and risk indicators and to engineer the safe planning and operations of such critical infrastructures.
PROF. DR. BOZIDAR STOJADINOVIC
Chair of Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (D-BAUG)
Bozidar Stojadinovic works on engineering the seismic risk of inhabited communities. This involves the development of probabilistic performance-based seismic design and evaluation methods applicable to individual structures as well as to interconnected sets of structures and infrastructure.
PROF. DR. FRANCESCO CORMAN
Transport Systems (D-BAUG)
Francesco Corman holds the chair of Transport Systems at the Institute of Transport Planning and Systems. His main research interests are in the field of railway traffic control and management to reduce delays for the system and its users. This is achieved based on quantitative methods and operations research to transport sciences, especially on the operational perspective, public transport, railways and logistics.
PROF. DR. GIOVANNI SANSAVINI
Chair of Reliability and Risk Engineering (D-MAVT)
Giovanni Sansavini analyzes reliability and risk issues in large-scale interdependent technical networks. He develops hybrid modeling and simulation approaches to quantify reliability and risk indicators and to engineer the safe planning and operations of such critical infrastructures.
PROF. DR. ROGER WATTENHOFER
Distributed Computing Group (D-ITET)
Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory (TIK)
Roger Wattenhofer works on understanding risk in networks. The methods are a combination of algorithms, game theory, data science, machine learning, and building software. The topics change over time, and currently include fintech, economy, cryptocurrency, blockchain, e-voting, democracy, and graph neural networks.
PROF. DR. GIOVANNI SANSAVINI
Chair of Reliability and Risk Engineering (D-MAVT)
Giovanni Sansavini analyzes reliability and risk issues in large-scale interdependent technical networks. He develops hybrid modeling and simulation approaches to quantify reliability and risk indicators and to engineer the safe planning and operations of such critical infrastructures.
PROF. DR. BOZIDAR STOJADINOVIC
Chair of Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (D-BAUG)
Bozidar Stojadinovic works on engineering the seismic risk of inhabited communities. This involves the development of probabilistic performance-based seismic design and evaluation methods applicable to individual structures as well as to interconnected sets of structures and infrastructure.
PROF. DR. STEFAN WIEMER
Chair of Seismology and Director, Swiss Seismological Service (D-ERDW)
Stefan Wiemer is professor of seismology and heads the Swiss Seismological Service (SED). The SED at ETH Zurich is the federal agency responsible for monitoring earthquakes and assessing the seismic hazard of Switzerland.
PROF. DR. PATRICK CHERIDITO
Professor of Mathematics (D-MATH)
Patrick Cheridito’s main research interest is the analysis of stochastic models and their applications to insurance mathematics, quantitative risk management, mathematical finance and economics.
PROF. DR. HANS GERSBACH
Chair of Macroeconomics: Innovation and Policy (D-MTEC)
Hans Gersbach analyzes new designs for the financial architecture and for fiscal and monetary policy-making, to deal with systemic risks. For this purpose, he embeds models of banking, systemic risk, and politics into new macroeconomic models, to examine their possible consequences.
PROF. DR. BRUNO SUDRET
Chair of Risk, Safety and Uncertainty Quantification (D-BAUG)
Bruno Sudret works on probabilistic methods for uncertainty quantification in complex engineering and natural systems. He develops advanced algorithms at the boundary between statistics and machine learning to assess the reliability and the optimal robust design of such systems.