Prof. Kolumban Hutter, ETHZ, Switzerland

received a diploma in civil engineering in 1964 from ETH Zurich and a M. Sc. & Ph. D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York in 1973. He has held the position of Professor of Mechanics at Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany from 1987-2006 and is presently a guest scientist at the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology, ETH Zurich and at Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

His research interests are in geophysical mechanics with applications in the dynamics of glaciers and ice sheets, the mechanics of granular materials, avalanching flows of snow, debris and mud, physical limnology and the foundations of continuum mechanics and thermodynamics. Professor Hutter is author and co-author of more than 360 papers and has written or edited more than 20 books.

He has also served as scientific editor of the Journal of Glaciology for 14 years and was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Continuum Mechanics and Thermodynamics for 17 years. He is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the upcoming book Series "Advances in Geophysical and Environmental Mechanics" published by Springer Verlag.

Professor Hutter was awarded the Max-Planck Prize of the Max-Planck Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany) in 1994, the Alexander von Humboldt Prize of the Foundation of Polish Science in 1998, and the Seligman Crystal of the International Glaciological Society in 2003. He permanent address is Zurich, Switzerland.