Prof. em. Dr. Jörg Schneider

Jörg Schneider was Professor of Structural Engineering at ETH Zurich starting in 1967. He retired in October 1999.

Born in 1934 in Cologne, Germany, Jörg Schneider received his civil engineering degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich in 1958. He worked as an assistant at ETH from 1959 to 1963 and then joined the firm of Stahlton/BBRV, where he was involved in the development of prestressing and precasting systems and the design of concrete structures.

His research interests focussed on the safety and reliability of structures, with special emphasis on human error. In recent years, he has also become interested in risk analysis and the safety of transport systems.

He has been active in many committees at ETH, as well as in the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA), and the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE). He has been a member of the Joint Committee on Structural Safety (JCSS) since 1979, serving as its president from 1990 to 1994. He was the chairman of the Expert Group on Safety-in-Operation for AlpTransit, the railway tunnelling system crossing the Swiss Alps until the group dissolved itself in 1999. Jörg Schneider was elected to the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW) in 1991 and, in 1998, received the title of Dr.h.c. from the University of Agricultural Sciences Vienna. In 2002 he was elected Honorary Member of IABSE.