Materials Meet Engineering: Translating Research into scalable solutions

Empa – the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology – focuses on developing materials and technologies that address societal challenges and enable sustainable innovation. Positioned at the interface between cutting-edge research and application, Empa translates advances in materials science into solutions with tangible impact for industry and society.
This talk provides an overview of key Empa activities across energy, mobility, health and the built environment, highlighting examples such as circular materials, advanced manufacturing, functional surfaces, and energy systems. Emphasis is also placed on interdisciplinary initiatives and technology transfer platforms like NEST, move, the Coating Competence Center, or the Climate Solutions Hub which accelerate the transfer of research into scalable applications.
Building on these examples, closer collaborations with the EPFL School of Engineering (STI), e.g. at the intersection of materials, intelligent systems, and advanced engineering are foreseen.

Bio:
Tanja Zimmermann has a Master in Wood Science and Technology from the University of Hamburg and a Master of Advanced Studies in Secondary and Higher education from ETH Zürich. She received her PhD from the University of Hamburg in 2007. Tanja Zimmermann built up the cellulose nanocomposites research topic at Empa as group leader and later as head of the laboratory "Applied Wood Materials". She became a member of the Directorate of Empa in 2017, leading the department "Functional Materials" as well as the research focus area of "Sustainable Construction" dealing with different materials such as e.g. concrete and asphalt, wood, ceramics, advanced polymer fibers, or energy materials and components. Tanja Zimmermann is an elected member of Academia Europaea and part of various national and international committees and scientific advisory boards. Since June 2022 she has been Director of Empa and Professor for Materials Science at ETH Zurich and EPF Lausanne.