Prof. Dr. Andreas Fichtner

Profile

I am Full Professor for Seismology and Wave Physics at ETH Zurich. In January 2010, I received my PhD from the University of Munich for my work on external page Full Seismic Waveform Inversion for Structural and Source Parameters. During my postdoc at Utrecht University, I worked on the development of resolution analysis and multi-scale methods for seismic waveform inversion.

My research foci are on seismic tomography and fibre-optic sensing. To image the deep interior of the Earth, my team develops and applies novel techniques for numerical wave propagation, highly specialised non-linear optimisation techniques, and methods for uncertainty quantification in large-scale inverse problems. We deploy fibre-optic cables of several kilometres length in densely populated cities, and on volcanoes and glaciers. Using laser interferometry, these cables become seismic sensors that provide information about Earth structure and seismicity with unprecedented resolution. In addition to these core areas of expertise, I am working on and publishing in high-performance computing, medical ultrasound imaging, effective media and metamaterial design, and non-destructive testing. I am a co-founder and scientific adviser of the external page ETH Spin-Off Mondaic that provides solutions for full-waveform modelling and inversion to academia, industry and national labs.

For my work I received the 2011 external page Keiiti Aki Award from the American Geophysical Union, the 2015 external page Early Career Scientist Award from the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, and the 2018 external page Hoffmann Prize from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Since 2018, I serve as associate editor for the external page Journal of Geophysical Research.