Dieter Steiner

Dieter Steiner became Full Professor of Quantitative Geography at the ETH Zurich in the fall of 1975 and he retired in October 1998.

Dieter Steiner was born on Sept. 21, 1932, in Menziken, AG. He studied geography at the University of Zurich, where he also obtained his Ph.D. under Prof. Hans Boesch. Then he was Professor at the University of Chicago, Professor at the University of Zurich from 1964 to 1968and until 1975 he was Professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada.

His research activities were originally concerned with various aspects of geographical data collection and processing (remote sensing, statistical methods). In 1985 he established an interdisciplinary group on research and teaching in the field of human ecology. This group approaches problems associated with the human-environment relation from a social sciences and humanities point of view. His personal principal focused of interest is the development of an interdisciplinary concept of human ecology in evolutionary perspective.

Research projects of group members dealed with the following topics: The significance of knowledge by familiarity; ecology in the everyday life of farmers; the ecological-ethical embedding of economy; the ecophilosophical challenge to action theory; participatory approaches in urban large scale projects; environmental consciousness in a mountain area; a strategic model for the attainment of a sustainable mobility; the role of communicative rationality. Dieter Steiner was president of the Swiss Academic Society for Environmental Research and Ecology.