ETH’s new President takes up office
Joël Mesot, who became the university’s new president on the first of January, says he is starting the job “with enormous enthusiasm for ETH and excitement about the new challenge”.
Joël Mesot took over the reins at ETH on 1 January 2019 with what he describes as a sense of “great elation, dynamism and enthusiasm for this venerable institution”. As a long-serving ETH physics professor and member of the ETH Board, he knows ETH Zurich inside out. His initial priority is to share ideas with people who play a crucial role in the university’s success: the Executive Board, faculty professors and departments, committees and students, and university staff. Joël Mesot says he will set the first strategic milestones after 100 days or so.
On 24 October 2018, Switzerland’s Federal Council appointed Joël Mesot as successor to Lino Guzzella. His first symbolic appearance was at the Executive Board’s annual Christmas drinks party on 18 December, but his official start was on 1 January when he moved into his new base in the Executive Board wing of the main ETH building.
“I’m absolutely delighted to be starting, so I can get on with my new challenge,” the new President says. How does he plan to make his presence felt over the coming weeks and months? With a fairly low profile initially, is the answer. His first priority is to hold in-depth discussions with the people who play a crucial role in the university’s success. “I want to know what motivates my colleagues on the Executive Board – along with the professors, staff, committee members, students and postdocs – and what their main goals are.” Only following thorough internal analysis after one hundred days or so does he plan to set strategic milestones designed to ensure that ETH Zurich continues to develop as impressively as it has done in recent years.
The team as a success factor
The key to the university’s consistently stellar performance is the product of many specialists working together, Joël Mesot explains and draws an analogy with football, which he used to play seriously as an ambitious amateur: “Of course the coach and team captain provide vital input for game strategy, but what ETH needs to keep its place at the top of the table is to score goals. They only come if the entire team plays together convincingly.” However, the conditions are perfect for this to happen. “It is partly thanks to my predecessor’s outstanding contribution that ETH Zurich enjoys such a strong position, and I am extremely grateful for that,” stresses the new ETH President.
Joël Mesot is a highly regarded physicist and holds a professorship in physics at ETH Zurich. He was appointed Director of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen in 2008, and under his leadership it strengthened its standing as one of Switzerland’s leading research centres for the natural sciences and engineering.
Award-winning physicist
Joël Mesot grew up in Geneva. In 1992 he obtained a doctorate in solid-state physics. In 2002 ETH Zurich awarded him the Latsis prize for his work in the area of strongly correlated materials such as superconductors, metal oxides and quantum magnets. He also received the IBM prize of the Swiss Physical Society. After periods spent in France and the USA, he joined PSI in 1999, where he became Head of the Laboratory for Neutron Scattering in 2004. Joël Mesot has also been a member of the ETH Board since 2008. French is his mother tongue, but he also speaks fluent German.