Michael Schaepman, PhD

Prof Dr sc nat Michael Schaepman (b. 1966) studied geography, experimental physics and informatics at the University of Zurich and earned his doctoral degree at the UZH Department of Geography UZH in 1998. Following postdoctoral work at the University of Arizona in Tucson, USA, he returned to the UZH Department of Geography in 2000 to head up a research group. In 2003, Dr Schaepman was appointed Professor of Geographic Information science at the Department of Environmental Sciences at Wageningen University, Netherlands, where from 2005 he was academic head of the Center for Geoinformation. He has been professor of remote sensing at the Department of Geography (Remote Sensing Laboratories) at the University of Zurich since 2009.

His research priorities include Earth observation, remote sensing and spectroscopy to measure biodiversity from space. Dr Schaepman was appointed Vice Dean and then Dean of the Faculty of Science in 2014 and 2016, respectively. From 2017 to 2020 he was the member of the Executive Board of the University responsible for the areas of research, innovation and academic career development. He has been President of the University of Zurich since 1 August 2020.