thesis eth usys

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Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science

Master's thesis.

The Master's thesis will typically cover the last term of the programme. One of the main learning goals is to advance your ability to work autonomously, conceptually and scientifically within a current research project.

Topics for Master's thesis can be found on the web pages of the different research groups at IAC and on the web page of the protected page MSc-Seminar lock :

• Group of Prof. Manuela Brunner
• Group of Prof. Daniela Domeisen
• Group of Prof. Robert Jnglin Wills
• Group of Prof. Reto Knutti
• Group of Prof. Ulrike Lohmann
• Group of Prof. Thomas Peter
• Group of Prof. Sebastian Schemm
• Group of Prof. Sonia I. Seneviratne
• Group of Prof. Heini Wernli

It is also worthwhile getting in touch with the lecturers. Often, the most exciting and suitable subjects develop from a conversation.

Step-by-step guidance

There are subtle differences in the procedure between D-ERDW and D-USYS summarized in the following:

Master's thesis subjects will be presented in the first seminar of the spring semester and for the rest of the year they are published here and on the website of the research groups. You can certainly look at other institutions such as Meteoswiss, WSL and Agroscope.

The Master's thesis must be supervised by a professor of the Department, including honorary professors, associated professors and senior lecturers, or by someone on the Department's list of approved supervisors which can be found in moodle.

The Master's thesis has to be carried out under the supervision of

- a professor of D-ERDW or of IAC or

- a professor in the master programme's module courses or

- a senior scientist from the list of approved supervisors of D-ERDW or D-USYS associated with the IAC

D-ERDW & D-USYS

You have to register through mystudies for the thesis, indicating your main supervisor. 

If the starting date of the work is between July and January, the enrolment should be for the autumn semester; if it is between February and June it should be for the spring semester. If the period the work spans two semesters, the enrolment should be made for the first semester only, and the option 'leave of absence' (Urlaubssemester) should be chosen for the second semester.

If the workplace is at IAC, please fill out the Personalblatt together with your supervisor and send it back to Peter Isler. If you need a Linux account or additional storage please contact the system administrators.

The student hands in the Master’s thesis (physical copy or PDF) to the main supervisor (incl. the signed " Download Declaration of Originality (PDF, 183 KB) vertical_align_bottom ") no later than midnight of the individual deadline. The main supervisor confirms the submission in eDoz. More information can be found here . Furthermore you have to upload your thesis to the IAC thesis archive .  

The Master's thesis is assessed by the main supervisor and at least one additional supervisor/advisor, using the official evaluation form ( Download downloadable here (PDF, 239 KB) vertical_align_bottom ).

The Master's thesis is assessed by the main supervisor and at least one additional supervisor/advisor using the official evaluation form ( Download downloadable here (PDF, 116 KB) vertical_align_bottom ). 

Please check your department's website for updated information on the submission deadlines for the current years diploma ceremony.

ETH offers travel allowances for individual journeys which are closely associated with a course of study program. Find out more on the  Student portal of ETH.

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Open theses

For prospective students, this is a list of actual or potential topics for BSc or MSc theses that are currently available at TdLab. If you are interested in taking up one of these topics for your thesis at TdLab, please contact the corresponding supervisor(s) listed under each topic.

B = Bachelor thesis, M = Master thesis

Ongoing theses at TdLab

Completed theses at tdlab.

2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015

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Grassland Sciences

Bsc and msc theses, open thesis topics.

Here you find Download new thesis topics (PPTX, 31.1 MB) vertical_align_bottom for BSc and MSc projects (updated Feb. 2024) or propose your own topic. Further topics from other groups are available in the D-USYS data base .

Previous Theses

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Dept. of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering

Projects and master's thesis.

Master's students are required to complete one (2018 regulations) or two (2008 regulations) semester projects and one Master's thesis. The projects and the thesis are supervised by a professor of the Department (including adjunct professors ) or by a Download professor associated (PDF, 97 KB) vertical_align_bottom with the Department. Most projects are carried out under the guidance of, and in close contact with, a PhD student of the supervising professor. If two semester projects are carried out, to broaden your horizon, they should be carried out with two different professors.

Semester projects

A semester project should take about half of a student‘s time during one semester, i.e., about 300 to 400 hours has a duration of 14 weeks . It is possible to do a semester project in 7 weeks full-time outside a semester, but it is not recommended. The project includes an oral presentation and a written report, and it is graded. Before starting, the project must be registered in mystudies ("Projects/papers/theses").

Students from outside ETH are advised to pick and to start a semester project right at the beginning of their first semester at ETH and to take these projects seriously.

Master's thesis

The Master's degree programme concludes with a Master's thesis that lasts six months. The project includes an oral presentation and a written report (the Master's thesis), and it is graded. Before starting the project, the Master's thesis must be registered in mystudies ("Projects/papers/theses"). You will be admitted to the Master's thesis only if both semester projects (2008 regulations) are or one semester project (2018 regulations) is successfully completed.

Once the Master's thesis is successfully finished and all credits are obtained, students may request their diploma .

Information: Publication of Master Thesis in the Research Collection

Students have the possibility of publishing their master theses in the Research Collection . To publish master theses in the Research Collection, a letter of recommendation from the respective supervisor is needed. You can find further information on the webpage .

Semester project, Bachelor's and Master's theses offers at D-ITET:

If projects are taken, sometimes related projects may be available. Often, labs are willing to customize a project to match the students' interests. Many labs welcome students' own ideas for projects.

Below an overview of labs offering semester project and Master's thesis by specialisation:

• chevron_right Communication Technology Laboratory
• chevron_right Signal and Information Processing Laboratory
• chevron_right Chair for Mathematical Information Science
• chevron_right Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory
• chevron_right Computer Vision Laboratory
• chevron_right Chair for Computer Science
• chevron_right Computer Security Group
• chevron_right Computer Architecture (SAFARI Research Group)
• chevron_right Institute for Electronics
• chevron_right Institute of Electromagnetic Fields
• chevron_right Integrated Systems Laboratory
• chevron_right Millimetre-wave Electronics Laboratory
• external page call_made Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics at EMPA
• chevron_right Photonics Laboratory

Booklet Download Semester/Master's theses "Energy and Power Electronics" (PDF, 78.2 MB) vertical_align_bottom

• chevron_right Advanced Power Semiconductor Laboratory
• chevron_right Laboratory for High-power Electronics Systems
• chevron_right Power Electronic Systems Laboratory
• chevron_right High Voltage Laboratory
• chevron_right Power Systems Laboratory
• external page call_made Institute of Neuroinformatics
• chevron_right Institute for Biomedical Engineering

For further ITET projects see external page SiROP website call_made .

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Climate Policy

Open theses topics.

Welcome. Being here, you might be interested in doing Bachelor or Master Thesis at the Climate Policy Lab. Here is what you should know before you take a look around.

We sometimes have thesis topics available, which you will find here and/or on the respective DUSYS Moodle. If the idea matches our research agenda, we are also happy to support you in developing your own topic.

Note, the topics we provide are not necessarily fully developed proposals, but still require you to figure out an appropriate research question, and methods set to be applied. We firmly believe that this is the most challenging part in doing research and we do not want to take that away from you.

This also means that there will be an intense phase of communication and work when developing your thesis proposal at the beginning of the process which starts ahead of the official starting date. Rest assured this usually pays off for the actual thesis process and helps both you and your supervisor to be certain that the topic and you are a match.

2024-02-08 – Who gets to fly in the future ? Applying justice principles to a constrained aviation budget

To meet ambitious climate targets, changes in flying behaviour will likely be unavoidable. The decision of who gets to fly is, however, very non-trivial. Any such decision will inherently come with distributional implications, with some groups winning and others losing. One way to approach this decision-making is to apply different justice principles (equality, priority, proportionality, etc.) to obtain different patterns of how the remaining flying budget is divided. Download More information (PDF, 226 KB) vertical_align_bottom

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Master in Comparative and International Studies (MACIS)

Master's thesis guidelines.

You may write your MA thesis in either during the spring or fall semester. The registration deadline is March and September respectively. The exact dates will be released a few weeks prior to the deadline with the 'MA Thesis Guidelines'.

MA Thesis Colloquium : you must attend the MA thesis colloquium, present your initial proposal and (later in the semester) the full research design, and actively participate in the discussions. Typically, there are around 5 meetings. You will need to register for the colloquium in myStudies. 

MA Thesis Workshop: you must attend the MA thesis workshop and present the results of your MA thesis research in front of all MACIS students. This workshop usually takes place March and July respectively.

Download MA Thesis Guidelines Fall 2023 (PDF, 646 KB) vertical_align_bottom Download MA Thesis Guidelines Spring 2024 (PDF, 624 KB) vertical_align_bottom

ETH Medal Outstanding Master’s theses are honoured with the Silver Medal of ETH Zurich and a financial sum. Please find the directives here Since the number of medals awarded is capped, the D-GESS is typically allocated with one medal over the three MA programs (MA CIS, MA GPW and MSc STP) each year. The directors of study will nominate the candidates and take a joint decision. The ETH Medal will be awarded at the Master's degree graduation ceremony.

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Institute of Science, Technology and Policy

Doctoral theses, navigating circular economy transitions and extended producer responsibility: insights from plastic packaging, battery, and coffee supply chains.

Jakob Prüss

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, March 2024 . Department of Environmental Systems Science ( D-USYS ) Main Advisor: Prof. Rachael Garrett Corresponding ISTP Project:  Global Supply Chains at  SWISSCHAINS – Swiss Sustainable Supply Chain Lab

Application of Heterogeneous CPU-GPU Hardware for Large-Scale Agent-Based Mobility Simulations

Aleksandr Saprykin

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, November 2022 . Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering ( D-MAVT ) Main Advisor:  Reza Abhari Corresponding ISTP Project: Mobility Simulation at the Swiss Mobility Lab

Catchment Scale Distributed Modelling Framework to Assess the Transport and Transformation of Contaminants

Chunming Sui

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, November 2022 . Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering ( D-BAUG ) Main Advisor:  Paolo Burlando Corresponding ISTP Project: Swiss Minerals Observatory

Effective Monitoring Strategies For Mining-Related Water Pollution

Désirée Ruppen

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, April 2022 . Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-​USYS) Corresponding ISTP Project: Swiss Minerals Observatory

Towards Responsible Gold Supply Chains: A Case Study from Burkina Faso to Switzerland

Antoinette van der Merwe

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, April 2022 . Corresponding ISTP Project: Urban Mining, Swiss Minerals Observatory

Energy Transition - Risk and Uncertainty Quantification of Electric Infrastructure and Spot Market Prices

Patrick Plagowski

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, April 2022 . Corresponding ISTP Project:  Electric Mobility , Swiss Mobility lab

Metropolitan-​scale Agent-​based Modelling of Street Robbery using Reinforcement Learning: Quantitative Assessment of Infrastructure Intervention

Christiaan Johannes Joubert

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, January 2022 . Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (D-​MAVT) Main Advisor:  Prof. Dr.  Reza Abhari Corresponding ISTP Project: Agent-based Modelling of Robbery , Urban Research Incubator

Creating transparency in global value chains and their environmental impacts to support sustainability policies

Livia Cabernard

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, October 2021 Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (D-​BAUG) Main Advisor: Prof. Dr. Stefanie Hellweg Corresponding ISTP Project: Supply Chain Analysis , Swiss Minerals Observatory

See in the ETH Research Collection.

Infrastructures of Freedom. Public Light and Everynight Life in 'Informal Settlements'

Stephanie Briers

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, September 2021. Department of Architecture (D-​ARCH) Main Advisor: Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid Corresponding ISTP Project: Performing Light: The Impact of Public Lighting in Informal Settlements in Cape Town , Urban Research Incubator

Electric Vehicle Adoption and Acceptance

Gracia Brückmann

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, May 2021. Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (D-​GESS) Main Advisor:  Prof. Dr. Thomas Bernauer Corresponding ISTP Project: Fostering the transition towards fuel-efficient cars , Swiss Mobility Lab

See in the ETH Research Collection .

In Between Walls and Fences. How Gated Communities in Bogotá Shape Exclusive and Insecure Public Spaces Outside the Gates.

David Kostenwein

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, April 2021. Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (D-​GESS) Main Advisor:  Prof. Dr. Andreas Wenger Corresponding ISTP Project: In Between Walls and Fences , Urban Research Incubator

Digital Urban Imaginaries: Digital models transforming citizen-centred design processes

Michael Walczak

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, March 2021. Department of Architecture (D-ARCH) Main Advisor: Prof. Hubert Klumpner Corresponding ISTP Project: Visualisation Framework , Urban Research Incubator

Night in the Informal City: How Limited Public Infrastructure Shapes Life After Dark in Informal Settlements.

Yael Borofsky

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, January 2021. Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (D-​GESS) Main Advisor:  Prof. Dr. Isabel Günther Corresponding ISTP Project: Performing Light , Urban Research Incubator

Incremental light space: Reducing socio-technical night-time public space inequality in Bogotá through lighting technology and design for informal settlements.

David Kretzer

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, January 2021. Department of Architecture (D-ARCH) Main Advisor: Prof. Hubert Klumpner Corresponding ISTP Project: The Impact of Lighting Technology and Design on Public Lighting Policies for Informal Settlements , Urban Research Incubator See in the ETH Research Collection

Vulnerability of mountain destinations towards socio-demographic and climatic changes.

Fabian Willibald

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, December 2020. Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (D-BAUG) Main Advisor: Prof. Dr. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey Corresponding ISTP Project: Decarbonisation & Landscape , Swiss Mobility Lab See in the ETH Research Collection

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) – for whose benefit? Consumer valuation of bundling in the mobility market 

Sergio Guidon

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, May 2020. Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (D-BAUG) Main Advisor: Prof. Dr. Kay Axhausen Corresponding ISTP Project: Swiss Mobility Lab

See in the ETH Research Collection

Ambitious Mobility Policies and Public Opinion: Doomed to Fail?

Michael Wicki

Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich, December 2019. Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (D-GESS) Main Advisor: Prof. Dr. Thomas Bernauer Corresponding ISTP Project: Swiss Mobility Lab

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Chair of Geoinformation Engineering

Student theses.

Find a list with possible topics for both Bachelor- and  Master-Thesis as well as the Geomatics Project in the area of Geoinformation Engineering. New topics are usually published for the Spring Semester - if you would like to write your thesis in Autumn Semester please contact the advisors mentioned in the published list.

• Download vertical_align_bottom Geomatics Project 2024  (PDF, 416 KB)
• Download vertical_align_bottom Bachelor Topics 2024  (PDF, 669 KB)
• Download vertical_align_bottom Master Topics 2024  (PDF, 585 KB)

Your individual assignment will be adjusted with respect to scope and research/practical focus. You are also welcome to suggest topic adjustments to account for your individual interests.

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Laboratory for Systems Physiology

The moor lab welcomes a new master student.

Join us in welcoming Greta Bordin to our lab! Greta will be delving into the world of spatial transcriptomics data analysis for her master's thesis, collaborating closely with our computational experts Simona and Erkin.

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We are thrilled to welcome Greta Bordin to our lab as she embarks on her master's thesis journey. Greta's focus will be on the computational analysis of spatial transcriptomics data, a rapidly developing field that intersects with many of our ongoing research projects. Working alongside our experienced computational biologists, Simona and Erkin, Greta will delve into this exciting area, aiming to unravel the intricacies of spatial gene expression patterns and their biological significance. With her enthusiasm and dedication, we are confident that Greta will make valuable contributions to our research endeavors. Here's to a successful and rewarding journey ahead, Greta

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GIS at D-USYS

Main content.

Welcome to the D-USYS GISTeam

a small team of four people in the field of GIS and remote sensing. Our main task is the GIS education at D-USYS, but we also offer GIS support for students, PhD students and employees of ETH and maintain the USYS ArcGIS online platform.

Do you have a GIS problem?

Exciting geodata

Stork in overflight

Esri Young Scholar Award 2023 (Switzerland)

Virginia Molin has won the Esri Young Scholar Award 2023 for Switzerland with her bachelor thesis on "Mountain Bike Trails in Jurapark Aargau – GIS-based Analysis on Usage Density". The award ceremony took place on 12 July 2023 in San Diego (California). Congratulations Virginia from the whole GISTeam.

Open Master's thesis (WSL)

Master thesis on "Is ground-based vehicle lidar data collection an alternative to airborne and terrestrial laser scanning systems?"

17. EGREGIS Meeting

The 17th EGREGIS meeting took place on 25 January 2023 at SLF in Davos. Many thanks to the SLF for organising the meeting and to all participants for the lively exchange of information. The next meeting will take place at the end of January 2024 at  WSL in Birmensdorf.

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Department of Health Sciences and Technology

Awards for master students in food science.

At the Master celebration of the study programmes Agricultural Sciences and Food Science, held on 19 April 2924 in the main building at ETH Zurich, the following prizes were awarded to graduates in Food Science.

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Congratulations go to:

Willi-​​​Studer-​​Preis

Jiatong Nie , MSc ETH Lm, for the best overall average garade 2023.

Natalie Kallay , MSc ETH Lm, thesis title: «Effect of Supplementary Gut Symbiont Extracellular Vesicles on Obesity and Metabolic Health», carried out under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Emma Wetter Slack and Dr. Aleksandar Kostic, Harvard Medical School

Hochdorf-​​​Preis

Katrin Müller , MSc ETH Lm, thesis title: «Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) Assisted Extraction of Vicine and Convicine from Faba Bean», carried out under the supervision of Prof. Laura Nyström and Prof. Maud Langton (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)

SGLWT-​​​Preis

Thomas Mair , MSc ETH Lm, thesis title: «Validation of Small-Scale Batch Process for the Formation of Fibrous Structure of Plant and Single Cell Proteins Under Well-Defined Condition to Predict Performance in High Moisture Extrusion Process», carried out under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Alexander Mathys and Dr. Joseph Dumpler

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Separation Processes Laboratory

Congratulations leif.

We congratulate Leif-Thore Deck for his successful doctoral defense.

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Leif succesfully finished his doctoral studies on April 16th. His thesis entitled '' Characterizing liquid-solid phase transitions for mechanistic model-based process design '' collects his research on various topics from freezing of pharmaceuticals to crystallization processes and solid-state deracemization.

We wish him all the best in his future adventures.