Frank Schweitzer - Short Bio

Frank Schweitzer has been Full Professor for Systems Design at ETH Zurich since 2004. He is also associated member of the Department of Physics at the ETH Zurich.

Frank Schweitzer received his first Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) in theoretical physics at the age of 26, and his second Ph.D. (Dr. phil.) in philosophy of science at the age of 29, he further earned a habilitation/Venia Legendi in Physics. In his professional career, he worked for different research institutions (Max-Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Fraunhofer Institute for Autonomous Intelligent Systems, Sankt Augustin) and universities (Humboldt University Berlin, Cornell University Ithaca NY, Emory University, Atlanta GA).

The research of Frank Schweitzer focuses on applications of complex systems theory in the dynamics of social and economic organizations. He is interested in phenomena as diverse as user interaction in online social networks, collective decisions in animal groups, failure cascades and systemic risk in economic networks, and the rise and fall of collaborations in socio-technical systems. His methodological approach can be best described as data-driven modeling, i.e., it combines the insights from big data analysis with the power of agent-based computer simulations and the strength of rigorous mathematical models.

Frank Schweitzer is a founding member of the ETH Risk Center and Editor-in-Chief of ACS - Advances in Complex Systems (ongoing) and EPJ Data Science (until end of 2017).