News

Siyu Tang promoted to Associate Professor

Siyu Tang, currently Tenure Track Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich, is promoted to Associate Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Computer Science. Siyu Tang has attracted global recognition for her groundbreaking research on human motion estimation, avatar creation and motion synthesis in people. Her work opens up new opportunities for applications such as augmented reality, robotics and digital humans. Her research group is regarded as one of the world’s leading centres for the visual understanding of human beings. Siyu Tang has obtained impressive amounts of funding, as well as an ERC Starting Grant. Her appointment enables the Department to retain a top international scientist who covers a broad range of topics at the intersection of computer vision, computer graphics and machine learning. Congratulations!

Quentin Boehler joins CLS

We are delighted to welcome ETH Professor Quentin Boehler (D-MAVT) to the CLS faculty. Quentin is an Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) of Robotics at ETH Zurich in the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, where he leads the Medical Robotics Lab.

Bradley Nelson elected Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Bradley Nelson, Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich, has been inducted as a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), one of the highest honours China awards to scientists from outside the country. The induction ceremony took place in Beijing on 7 July 2026. Image: Chinese Academy of Sciences.

CLS2026 Retreat held in Aldingen

Networking event hosted by MPI for Intelligent Systems

Most CLS Researchers are frequent travellers on the roughly 210 km route between Stuttgart and Zurich. For this year's CLS Retreat, we chose a location at almost exactly the midway point: this took us to the charming Swabian village of Aldingen. A total of 39 people, including CLS doctoral fellows and associate fellows as well as faculty members, travelled from Zurich, Stuttgart and Tübingen to join the event, held during 22 - 24 June 2026.

Flying robot rides the wind like a bird

Embodied intelligence makes robot energy-efficient and easy to steer

Scientists built a flying robot that is both easy to control and energy-efficient, especially in changing wind conditions. The robot can change its shape and uses wind to stay in the air, instead of relying on thrust-generating motors. The idea is inspired by how birds fly which remain naturally stable when airborne. The work was published in npj Robotics on June 21, 2026.

Otto Hahn Medal awarded to Ellen Rumley and Max Dax

The Max Planck Society honors Rumley and Dax with this prestigious award for their fundamental and innovative research in the field of electrohydraulic actuators and machine learning. The aim of the award is to motivate particularly talented individuals to pursue a university or research career.

Buse Aktaş named to ASME’s 2026 Mechanical Engineering Watch List

The list recognizes 25 early-career engineers who have already left their mark on industry, academia, and society

Two robotics professors receive IEEE Awards

Roland Siegwart and Robert Katzschmann from the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (D-MAVT) at ETH Zurich were honoured by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Images: Ramona Tollardo, Jakob Ineichen.

Three MPI-IS scientists to serve on the EU AI Act Scientific Panel

Sahar Abdelnabi, Maksym Andriushchenko, and Zhijing Jin were selected join the expert panel

Sahar Abdelnabi, Maksym Andriushchenko, and Zhijing Jin were selected to serve on the EU AI Act Scientific Panel. The 60 experts of the Scientific Panel will advise the EU AI Office and national authorities on the implementation of the AI Act and the assessment of the impacts and risks of General-Purpose AI models.

Bernhard Schölkopf Elected Fellow of the Royal Society