Michael Graetzel Professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, Michael Graetzel directs there the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces. He initiated research on energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic-materials and their optoelectronic applications.

He discovered a new type of solar cell based on dye sensitized mesoscopic oxide particles and pioneered the use of nanomaterials in electroluminscent and electrochromic displays as well as lithium ion batteries Author of over 500 publications, two books and inventor or co-inventor of over 40 patents his scientific work received over 30’000 times ranking him amongst the most highly cited scientists in the world.

He was an invited professor at the University of California at Berkeley, the Ecole National Supérieur de Cachan (Paris) and is presently part time distinguished visiting professor at the Delft University of Technology. He is a frequent guest scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden Coloradao and was a fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science.

He has received numerous awards including the Millenium 2000 European innovation price, the 2001 Faraday Medal of the British Royal Society, the 2001 Dutch Havinga Award, the 2004 Italgas Price, two McKinsey Venture awards in 1998 and 2002 and the 2005 Gerischer Prize.

He is holding a doctors degree from the TU Berlin and honorary doctors degrees from the Universities of Uppsala and Turin. He is a member of the Swiss Chemical Society as well as of the European Academy of Science and was elected honorary member of the Société Vaudoise de Sciences Naturelles.