Catherine De Wolf

As Assistant Professor of Circular Enigneering for Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Prof. Dr. Catherine De Wolf is conducting research on digital innovation towards a circular built environment. In her classes, she teaches digitalization for circular construction. She is also the founder of De Wolf Environmental Architecture Thinking. A key element in Catherine's work is ensuring a continuous link between academia and industry. Therefore, she works with real-world examples such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

After studying Civil Engineering and Architecture at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), she obtained a Masters of Science and PhD in Building Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her dissertation was about low carbon pathways for structural design and embodied life cycle impacts of building structures. During her PhD, she also worked in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, as well as in the Center for Natural Resources and the Environment in Kuwait and the African Urban Metabolism Network in South Africa.

After her PhD, she was an École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) fellow co-funded by Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships from the European Commission in the Structural Xploration Lab (SXL) within the smart living lab. Other professional experiences include working for Arup, Ney & Partners and other leading architectural and structural design firms. She regularly organises workshops at offices as well as in universities. She was one of the initiators of the Structural Engineers 2050 Commitment Initiative with the Carbon Leadership Forum and companies such as Arup and Thornton Tomasetti.