Michael Schaepman Proposed as New President of UZH

Prof. Michael Schaepman is set to become the new president of the University of Zurich. He has been nominated by the Senate with 383 of 515 valid votes. The Senate consists of 736 professors and 88 members representing the bodies of the students, the junior researchers, the senior researchers and teaching staff, and the administrative and technical staff. “I feel very honored that my colleagues have shown their trust in me and I gladly accept the nomination,” says Professor Schaepman.

From Zurich to Tucson and Wageningen back to UZH

The 54-year-old Schaepman is married with two children. He grew up in Zurich and studied geography, experimental physics and informatics at the University of Zurich, earning his doctoral degree at the Department of Geography in 1998. Following postdoctoral work at the University of Arizona in Tucson, USA, he returned to the UZH Department of Geography in 2000 to lead a research group. In 2003, Michael Schaepman was appointed professor of geographic information science at the Department of Environmental Sciences at Wageningen University (Netherlands), where, from 2005, he was academic head of the Center for Geoinformation. He has been professor of remote sensing at the Department of Geography (Remote Sensing Laboratories) at the University of Zurich since 2009.

His research priorities include Earth observation, remote sensing and spectroscopy to measure biodiversity from space. He was appointed Vice Dean and then Dean of the Faculty of Science in 2014 and 2016, respectively. Since August 2017, he has been a member of the Executive Board of the University with responsibility for the areas of research, innovation and academic career development.

Election by the Board of the University

Following the nomination by the Senate, the Board of the University will now elect the new president next Thursday, 9 July 2020.