Hans Christian Öttinger

Hans Christian Öttinger has been full Professor of Polymer Physics in the Department of Materials at ETH Zürich since 1996. From 2000 to 2002 he served as the Chairman of the Department of Materials. He has repeatedly served as the Head of the Institute of Polymers and, for a total of seven years, as the Director of Studies. His interests range from classical nonequilibrium systems to quantum dissipation and conceptual problems and the philosophy of physics.

He was born in 1958 and studied physics at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. He obtained his diploma in quantum field theory in 1981 and earned his doctorate in 1983 with a dissertation on materials with spatially modulated magnetic structures. Following a postdoc period at the Chemical Engineering Department and Rheology Research Center of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, USA, he returned to the University of Freiburg, where he completed his habilitation in the field of theoretical physics in 1988. In 1989 he joined the Department of Materials at ETH Zurich, where he first worked as senior researcher and lecturer and from 1992 to 1996 as assistant professor.

Hans Christian Öttinger has received the Bingham Medal for outstanding contributions to the field of rheology in 2008. He became a Fellow of the Society of Rheology in 2015 and a Member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences in 2017.

He became a Professor Emeritus at the end of January 2023.