Prof. Klaus Holliger

Klaus Holliger received MSc (1987) and PhD (1990) degrees in geophysics from ETH Zurich and a postgraduate degree in economics (2000) from the University of London. He did an extended postdoc at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and joined ETH Zurich's newly founded Applied and Environmental Geophysics Group as a lecturer in 1994, became senior lecturer in 1996, and was named professor in 2002. Klaus has also worked for shorter periods of time at the USGS, Imperial College, and the University of Cambridge. In 2005, he accepted a chaired professorship at the University of Lausanne.

Klaus just finished a term as vice-dean of research and is now the director of the university's geophysics institute. He recently became editor-in-chief of Journal of Applied Geophysics and is currently a co-editor of reference volume on Advances in Near-Surface and Ground-Penetrating Radar, to be published by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. Previously he served as associate editor of Geophysics, Water Resources Research, and Geology. Klaus was awarded the ETH-Medal for his MSc thesis, a Paul-Niggli-Foundation Fellowship for his PhD thesis and the Latsis Prize for his more recent work. Klaus is broadly interested and has worked and published in a variety of fundamental and applied research domains. To date, he has published more than 100 peer-refereed papers.

Currently, his main research interests are the inherently trans-disciplinary fields of environmental geophysics in general and hydrogeophysics in particular. Klaus teaches courses related to this topic at the University of Lausanne, EPFL, and the University of Neuchâtel, co-organized the Society of Exploration Geophysicists' first non-oil/gas-related workshop on this subject, and has recently served as guest editor for a hydrogeophysics special issue of Near Surface Geophysics.

Professional Experience

1988-present
Author of ~100 peer-reviewed articles in leading international journals; supervisor of more than 25 MSc/Diploma and PhD students of whom were awarded high-level distinctions, and 8 postdocs, 5 of whom have already become professors themselves or advanced to senior positions.

2009-present
Director, Institute of Geophysics, University of Lausanne

2006-2009
Vice-Dean of Research, Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Lausanne

2006-present
Lecturer Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and University of Neuchâtel

2005-present
Professor, Institute of Geophysics, University of Lausanne

2002-2005
Titular Professor, Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zurich

1994-2002
Lecturer and Senior Research Scientist, Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zurich

1990-1994
Research Associate ("postdoc"), Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

1985-1990
Research/Teaching Assistant, ETH Zurich 

Education

2000
Postgraduate Diploma in Economics, University of London

1996
Habilitation, ETH Zurich

1990
PhD ETH Zurich

1987
Diploma ETH Zurich/Imperial College London

Awards and Fellowships 

2010
Key note lecturer International Conference on Frontiers in Shallow Subsurface Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

2008
Key note lecturer International Conference on Environmental and Engineering Geophysics, Wuhan, China

2007
Outstanding Paper Award, Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union

2006
Key note lecturer NATO Advanced Study Institute on Shared Groundwater Resources, Varna, Bulgaria

2001
Visiting scientist fellowship, Agency for Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan

1999
Winner of the Prix Latsis Universitaire

1998
Visiting scientist fellowship, United States Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California, USA

1996
Society of Exploration Geophysicists distinguished speaker citation

1995
Guest lecturer fellowship, Imperial College, London, U.K.

1990
Young researcher fellowship of Paul-Niggli-Foundation

1988
Visiting scientist fellowship, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K.

1987
Winner of ETH medal for diploma thesis research / ETH diploma with distinction

1986
Exchange student fellowship, Imperial College, London, U.K. 

Editorial Positions

2009-present
Editor-in-chief Journal of Applied Geophysics
Co-editor of reference volume on Advances in Near-Surface Seismology and Ground-Penetrating Radar to be published by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists

2008-2009
Guest editor of Hydrogoephysics Special Issue of Near Surface Geophysics

2006-2008
Associate editor Water Resources Research

2004-2009
Associate editor Geophysics

1998-2006
Editorial board member Journal of Applied Geophysics

1999-2003
Associate editor Geology

2000-2002
Co-editor of textbook Heterogeneity in the Crust and Upper Mantle - Nature, Scaling and Seismic Properties (Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York)

Major Areas of Work and Interest

• Borehole and surface environmental geophysical investigations
• "Hydrogeophysics"
• Geostatistics
• Computational geophysics