News

ERC Starting Grant for Professor Lars Lindemann

Lars Lindemann has received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council for his research project “SPAROTICS”. The Professor of Algorithmic Systems Theory at the Automatic Control Laboratory (IfA) is investigating the robustness of autonomous control systems. Image: Kilian Kessler / ETH Zürich.

ERC Starting Grant for Ryan Cotterell

Professor Ryan Cotterell from the Department of Computer Science has received an ERC Starting Grant to investigate how large AI language models learn. He aims to uncover when these models can learn general rules and apply them to new cases and when they merely rely on statistical patterns from their training data. Ryan Cotterell is one of six ETH researchers to receive an ERC Starting Grant. (Image: Ryan Cotterell, edited by D-INFK).

Celestine Mendler-Dünner joins ETH as Associate Professor

Celestine Mendler-Dünner takes up her position as Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science, ETH Zurich, in September 2026. With this step, she also transitions to a CLS faculty member on the ETH side. In this interview, she discusses her reasons for choosing ETH Zurich, the challenges that arise when AI interacts with society and how computer science as a discipline must adept. (Image: Elia Schmid / Tübingen AI Center, edited by D-INFK).

From First PI to Associate Professor: Celestine's Move to ETH Zurich

T. Konstantin Rusch takes over from Michael Muehlebach on the CLS Steering Board

Effective September 1st, 2026, T. Konstantin Rusch joins the CLS Steering Board on behalf of the Max Planck side of the partnership, replacing Michael Muehlebach who has taken up a Full Professor position at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

"One-Wheel Cubli" wins IFAC Mechatronics Paper Prize

The One-Wheel Cubli is a cube-shaped robot that can balance on one corner using a single flywheel. The research project received the Mechatronics Paper Prize from the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). The robot was developed at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control (IDSC) by Matthias Hofer, Michael Muehlebach and Professor Raffaello D’Andrea. Image: IDSC.

Buse Aktaş receives L’Oréal UNESCO award „For Women in Science“

She and three other young female researchers will receive the highly prestigious award in Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf, August 31, 2026 – L’Oréal, the German National Commission for UNESCO, and the German Humboldt Network are once again honoring four outstanding young female scientists with the “For Women in Science” Award for their exceptional research contributions. The award ceremony will take place on September 16 at D’Haus, the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus. The recipients are researchers from TU Dresden, the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, the Technical University of Munich’s Straubing campus, and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart.

Women in Science; Award; L’Oréal; UNESCO

Joint Alumni Event at MPI-IS Tübingen

CLS joined with the ELLIS PhD Programme and the Empirical Inference Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems for a special reunion event.

10 per cent more solar power without new lines

Using more solar power without expanding the electricity grid: researchers at the Automatic Control Laboratory (IfA) at D-ITET, ETH Zurich, have shown that the capacity of existing grids can be increased significantly through the coordinated control of solar installations. Image: (Adobe Stock).

200 million for autonomous excavators

Gravis Robotics secured 200 million US dollars reaching a one billion dollar valuation, according to the US business magazine Inc. The ETH spin-off develops AI systems that enable excavators and other construction machinery to carry out certain tasks autonomously. Gravis Robotics was founded in 2022 and grew out of the Robotic Systems Lab led by ETH Zurich Professor Marco Hutter. Today, the company employs around 80 people and is already active in Europe, the USA, Latin America, and Asia. (Image: Gravis Robotics)