My name is Balázs, but everyone just calls me Balu. I am a Master Student in Statistics at ETH Zurich, interested broadly in Data Science, Machine Learning and AI, with a particular focus on Reinforcement Learning and Large Language Models.

The incredible odyssey I am about to tell you about all started one day back in the spring of 2025, when I saw on the Instagram story of ETH that UNDRR (United Nations Office for Disaster and Risk Reduction) was looking for Data Science and AI Interns in Bangkok. I immediately knew that I had to apply. While traveling around in Southeast Asia for two months two years ago, I fell in love with Asian culture. Considering that in my studies I put a strong focus on Data Science and AI, I thought this is the perfect opportunity for me!

Fast forward 6 months, I am standing at the gates of ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) in Bangkok, ready to be picked up and start my internship. I quickly got to know my team and all the other interns. I was surprised to see how many other interns there were across all the UN agencies in Bangkok. This made it very easy to find friends and build a social circle right from the beginning. What I valued right from the getgo, was the diverse background of all the people around me, be it culturally or academically. Most of the other interns were in the same phase of life as me, hovering somewhere around finishing their Master’s Degree. The majority had a background in social sciences, such as economics or law. At ETH we sometimes forget that there is also a world out there that does not care about math as much we do! It was very nice to be surrounded by people that look at the world from another angle compared to most STEM students. This helped me broaden my horizons in many aspects of life.

The start of my internship was fairly slow. Because the other two interns (Bilal, also an applied maths student from ETH, and Siwei, studying in Stockholm) and I were the first three AI interns ever at UNDRR, it was a lot of figuring out on both ends. As per usual, the first few weeks I was busy clicking through all the online onboardings. Who knew that as an intern in the IT team, I needed to know how to behave in case I am trapped in a mine field in the desert. But I soon got introduced to my main project: DATUM, UNDRRs RAG-based LLM. In a nutshell, this is a language model like ChatGPT, that builds on internal data at UNDRR. The language model can retrieve information from documents from the database of UNDRR that is relevant for the question a user may ask.

To my big surprise, after some weeks I was named the Project Manager. It felt quite surreal being given this responsibility as an intern. But I quickly realised that this internship would not be like any other internship. I doubt that there are many other internships that give you the same amount of responsibility right from the start as we have been given. This was both, challenging and also rewarding, at the same time. Considering the fact that AI was not the main focus of our team and something most members were not deeply familiar with, we interns were the ones with the most expertise and hence we were the ones who built the foundation for future interns or even full time employees. This is one of the things that I am most proud of: setting something in motion that will hopefully live on way beyond the end of my internship. To educate the other members of our team on topics revolving around AI, we held bi-weekly AI-talks, where we interns gave presentations about AI-related topics that we deemed interesting and relevant.

One of my proudest moments was when Jeanette Elsworth (Chief of the Communication, Advocacy and Knowledge Management Section of UNDRR) came to visit us in Bangkok and I had the opportunity to present to her the progress of our work. Within the three to four months that I have been there at that point, we had a prototype running of our RAG-based LLM. It was really rewarding to see the engagement and excitement of the whole team. For the remaining part of my internship, we further improved our model and developed an interface for it for internal use.

Another thing that I appreciated and made use of, was, that I could attend most of the conferences held at ESCAP. One of these conferences was the “AI for Developing Countries Forum” (https://af.net/bangkok/). By attending this conference, I learned a lot about the human aspect of artificial intelligence, and the imbalance in power in the AI race that is ongoing worldwide. The two most striking learnings for me were:

1) 60% of web content is written in English, whereas only around 16% of the world population speaks English (https://pollicy.medium.com/the-digital-divide-extends-to-language-what-now-919da821389e). This leads to an immense bias towards the English language when training LLMs on all of the data available on the web.

2) The CLOUD Act: a law that allows American federal law enforcement agencies to access data stored on servers from US-based tech companies (Meta, Google, Amazon, etc.) regardless of the location of the datacenter, be it in the US or abroad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act, https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4943, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-115publ141/pdf/PLAW-115publ141.pdf). Learning about this law made me question all the privacy claims that these big tech giants make. Attending this conference really broadened my horizons and gave me a new perspective on AI and data sovereignty. 

Outside of work, I had the opportunity to make Bangkok, the concrete jungle of Thailand, my home and engage in all the craziness and chaos it has to offer. I also had the privilege to travel around the country and explore it’s beautiful beaches, its underwater world while scuba diving, its majestic temples and most importantly, get to know the immense kindness of the Thai people. Many weekends and long evenings well spent that I will keep in good memory for the rest of my life.

At this point, I want to say a big thank you to all the people that have made this experience so amazing and unforgettable. Some people I want to mention explicitly include my direct supervisors, Anders Hansen and Revati Mani, my coworkers with whom I worked together on DATUM: Ryan Sandigan, Bilal Bounajma and Siwei Zhang and Camilla Andreozzi; and all the other interns that I’ve met along the way.

Lastly, none of this would have been possible without the support of ETH Studios. I am immensely grateful to have been given the financial support necessary to embark on this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Summer is a season for exploration. Some of us set off for distant destinations, others head into the mountains, discover new ideas from a deck chair, or simply take the time to reflect and recharge.

At ETH Zurich, exploration takes many forms. Through ETH Studios, students step beyond the lecture hall and into real-world environments where they tackle challenges that matter, collaborate across disciplines and cultures, and gain experiences that shape both their careers and perspectives.

This summer, travel with our ETH Ambassadors from the snowy peaks of Davos to the bustling streets of Bangkok, from Mars mission laboratories in California to hidden corners of Japan. Along the way, you will encounter scientific discovery, technological innovation, cultural exchange and personal growth.

Here are five inspiring stories to accompany your summer adventures.

1. Building a Protein Database at SIAF Davos

What happens when a computational biologist swaps the ETH campus for an alpine research institute?

Laura Nieba spent three months at the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF) in Davos, building an isoform-specific database of the human proteome. Alongside her research, she attended her first international scientific conference, learned new technical skills and watched the Alps transform from winter snow to vibrant spring landscapes.

A perfect read for anyone who loves science, mountains and discovering new paths. Read the article.

2. From River Droughts to Data Clusters: Internship at SLF

Following the hidden patterns of water. Why do rivers run dry?

During her internship at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Lydia Seebauer explored this question using decades of hydrometeorological data. Her journey reveals how researchers use data science to better understand droughts and the growing challenges posed by climate change.

If your summer plans include lakes, rivers or mountain hikes, this story offers a fascinating perspective on the forces shaping the landscapes around us. Read the article.

3. Behind the Next Mars Helicopter

From ETH Zurich to the future of planetary exploration. Few internships begin with testing drones in Mars-like deserts.

Benjamin Dupont spent six months at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, helping develop autonomy software for a future Mars rotorcraft. His story provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at cutting-edge robotics, space exploration and the teams working to push the boundaries of what is possible.

A must-read for anyone dreaming of space, engineering and innovation. Read the article.

4. 6 Months in Bangkok to Launch AI at UNDRR

Can artificial intelligence help reduce disaster risks around the world?

At the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in Bangkok, Bilal Bounajma became the organisation’s first data science and AI intern. Working at the intersection of technology, policy and humanitarian action, he helped lay the groundwork for future AI applications in disaster risk reduction.

This story highlights how knowledge developed at ETH can contribute to addressing global challenges. Read the article.

5. Discovering Hidden Japan

Some journeys begin with an internship and end with a completely new perspective.

Through a collaboration between ETH Zurich and the Marui Group, four students travelled across Japan, exploring how technology, sustainability and storytelling can create meaningful impact. From tea ceremonies and artisan workshops to executive presentations in Tokyo, their experience demonstrates the value of curiosity, openness and intercultural exchange.

An inspiring read for anyone planning a summer adventure abroad. Read the article.

Although these five journeys span different countries, disciplines and challenges, they share a common theme: learning happens when we step outside our comfort zones.

As you head into the summer months, we invite you to take these stories with you. They are reminders that curiosity can lead anywhere, that meaningful learning often happens far from familiar surroundings, and that the next great adventure may begin with a single opportunity.

Happy reading and enjoy your summer!

Looking for inspiring summer reads? Our ETH Ambassadors have spent the first half of 2026 exploring climate change from multiple perspectives, from global energy policy and planetary boundaries to Alpine hazards, drought research and institutional climate action.

This Summer Reading List brings together six stories that highlight how students, researchers and communities are responding to one of the greatest challenges of our time. Whether you are interested in science, policy, technology or human resilience, these articles offer fresh insights and personal perspectives from across the ETH community.

1. CERAWeek 2026: Shaping the Energy Future during a Global Energy Crisis

“Only strong and consistent policy frameworks will enable achieving climate targets.”

Three ETH students, Vivian Chen, Benedikt Buhk and Florian Marco Možina, travel to Houston to attend one of the world’s most influential energy conferences. Their reflections offer a behind-the-scenes look at global debates on energy security, climate policy and the role of academia in shaping the future of energy.

Read the article.

2. When Johan Speaks, You Listen

Are We Still Operating Within Earth’s Safe Limits?

In this article, Viktoria Österdahl reflects on a remarkable Global Lecture at ETH Zürich featuring leading climate scientist Johan Rockström and ETH Assistant Professor Millie Chapman, exploring one of the defining questions of our time: how do we keep humanity within a safe operating space on our planet?

Read the article.

3. EAGLE Hackathon at SLF: Mass Movement Detection in the Alps

What happens when students from different disciplines come together to tackle real-world challenges in the Alps?

In our latest ETH Ambassadors Blog, ETH Zürich students Bhawana Bhawana, Lilian Obrist and Sujani Mugunthan share their experience of detecting mass movements posing a risk for infrastructure and people living in alpine regions as part of the EAGLE Hackathon project at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL in Davos.

Read the article.

4. Net Zero Day: What Institutional Climate Action Looks Like from the Inside

What does climate action actually look like behind the scenes of a university?

Climate action is often discussed in abstract terms. In this article, Sebastian Kahlert shows what it looks like in practice at ETH Zürich, highlighting the people, projects and decisions that contribute to the university’s Net Zero ambitions.

Read the article.

5. From River Droughts to Data Clusters: Internship at SLF

What does it take to understand why rivers run dry?

In this article, ETH Zürich’s Lydia Seebauer shares how she explored the hidden patterns behind river droughts during her internship at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF.

By working with decades of hydrometeorological data and learning to apply clustering techniques, she uncovered how different processes shape drought events across time and regions. From uncertainty at the start to meaningful insights, her journey highlights what research really looks like.

Read the article. 

6. Brienz – A Village on the Verge of a New Beginning

What does a mayor do when his entire village must leave its homes?

In Brienz (GR), this question became reality. After more than a year of evacuation due to a moving mountainside, the village of Brienz is now entering a new chapter. In this article, Charles Bara recaps a talk by Daniel Albertin, Mayor of Albula/Alvra: a deeply personal account of leadership, uncertainty and responsibility, guiding a small Alpine community through an unprecedented natural hazard.

Read the article.

Together, these six stories demonstrate that climate change is more than an environmental issue. It is a challenge that touches energy systems, ecosystems, infrastructure, communities and policymaking. They also show that solutions emerge through collaboration between science, society and the next generation of researchers.

We hope these articles inspire you to explore new perspectives, ask critical questions and discover how research can help shape a more sustainable future.

“How often do we walk through a place without ever wondering what lies beneath it?”

I’ve walked across Campus Hönggerberg many times. Like most people, I admired the architecture, hurried between buildings and associated innovation with laboratories, artificial intelligence and groundbreaking research. It never occurred to me that one of ETH Zurich’s most fascinating innovations wasn’t inside a laboratory at all. It was beneath my feet. When I joined the Anergy Grid Tour (German: Anergienetz), I expected to learn how buildings are heated and cooled. Instead, I left seeing the campus in a completely different way.

There is another ETH beneath the one we know

Walking through the underground technical corridors felt like entering a hidden city. Instead of lecture halls and cafés, I found pumps, pipes, heat exchangers and control systems quietly working behind the scenes. It was easy to forget that only a few metres above us, campus life continued as usual.

One sentence stayed with me throughout the tour:

“Above ground, people exchange ideas. Below ground, buildings exchange energy.”

Suddenly, the campus no longer felt like a collection of individual buildings. It felt like one connected organism.

More than engineering

As Philipp Heitemann, one of the driving forces behind ETH Zurich’s Anergy Grid and the leader of its tours, guided us through the facilities, I realised this wasn’t really a story about technology.

It was a story about thinking differently.

Since 2013, ETH Zurich’s Anergy Grid has connected buildings through an intelligent low-temperature energy network. Instead of wasting excess heat, it stores thermal energy underground and redistributes it whenever another building needs it.

The technology is impressive. The philosophy behind it impressed me even more. Before the tour, I thought sustainability was mainly about producing more renewable energy. The Anergy Grid introduced me to another perspective:

Maybe the future isn’t only about producing more. Maybe it’s about wasting less. That simple idea has stayed with me ever since.

Coffee with Philipp

Before leaving, I asked Philipp a few questions that I couldn’t stop thinking about.

What do visitors almost always overlook during the tour?

“Most people focus on the technology. I hope they also notice the way of thinking behind it. The real innovation isn’t just the infrastructure—it’s the idea that buildings can cooperate instead of working independently.”

What’s one question you wish people asked more often?

“Instead of asking how the system works, I’d love more people to ask how we can transfer this way of thinking to entire neighbourhoods and cities.

“Imagine we’re standing here again in 2050. What do you hope we’ll see beneath our cities?

“I hope connected energy systems have become completely normal. The less people notice them, the better they’re probably working.”

Facts That Surprised Me

First in the world:The Anergy Grid went into operation in 2010 as the world’s first low-temperature anergy network—a pioneering concept that continues to inspire similar projects around the globe.

The ground is a giant thermal battery: Thermal energy can be stored underground for months and recovered when it’s needed.

Heat gets a second life: Instead of being wasted, excess heat is captured, stored and reused elsewhere in the network.

One network. Two seasons: The same infrastructure heats buildings in winter and cools them in summer.

Buildings work together: Instead of operating independently, they exchange thermal energy through one connected system.

Open source: The concept is openly shared, allowing cities, universities and organizations worldwide to build on ETH Zurich’s experience.

Curious? Join one of Philipp Heitemann’s Anergy Grid tours and discover the hidden world beneath Campus Hönggerberg.

Five Things I Took Home

• Innovation doesn’t always have to be visible.
• Great ideas often come from connecting existing systems rather than inventing new ones.
• Sustainability begins with systems thinking.
• Some of the smartest technologies quietly work in the background.
• Looking beneath the surface can completely change how we see the world above it.

Walking back across Campus Hönggerberg, nothing around me had changed. Students were still cycling between lectures. Researchers were still discussing ideas over coffee. The buildings looked exactly the same. Only my perspective had changed. Sometimes the most remarkable innovations aren’t the ones we immediately notice. Sometimes they’re quietly working beneath our feet. And perhaps that’s the most inspiring lesson I took home from the Anergy Grid Tour.

Visit ETH Zurich as part of a tour. Come along and discover what ETH Zurich has to offer, in ways that are as varied as our visitors themselves.

It all started in my kitchen. After eating a homemade carrot salad one evening, I noticed that the inside of my mouth had become swollen. Later, I learned that pollen-related food allergies can sometimes trigger such reactions. The experience left me wondering: could we know in advance whether a food might trigger an allergic reaction?

Around the same time, Merlin and I joined Prof. Kjell Jorner’s Digital Chemistry course at ETH out of curiosity about AI in the life sciences. Over lunch, we began exploring whether AI could help predict allergenic proteins beyond those already catalogued. Encouraged by early conversations with allergy researcher Katja Bärenfaller at the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF), we decided to pursue the idea.

This grew into XAllergen, a model designed to predict protein allergenicity accurately while providing interpretable explanations. Yet one question remained: what exactly do these AI explanations capture, and how closely do they align with established immunological knowledge?

To investigate this further, we continued the project through an ETH Studios internship at SIAF. Arriving in Davos, we found ourselves surrounded not only by snow-covered mountains, but also by a welcoming scientific community.

Through weekly institute meetings and conversations over lunch, we met researchers working across different areas of immunology. These interactions helped us better understand the immunological context of our project and ask more meaningful biological questions.

We were particularly grateful to our supervisors, Katja Bärenfaller and Damir Zhakparov, who encouraged us to challenge assumptions and explore uncertain directions. This open and supportive environment gave us the confidence to continue working on a challenging problem at the intersection of AI and immunology.

We found that the regions highlighted by current AI models often captured signals that were useful for prediction, but did not consistently match the parts of proteins that immunologists believe are responsible for triggering allergic responses. This matters because such models are increasingly used for safety screening of new food proteins and could one day help develop foods like carrots that no longer cause allergy. Our results suggest that strong predictive performance does not necessarily imply alignment with established biological mechanisms.

Looking back, this experience taught us that curiosity-driven research often follows an unpredictable path. A simple observation in a student kitchen led to a course project at ETH, an internship in Davos, and ultimately a scientific finding. The project will continue beyond Davos through presentations and discussions with the international machine learning and computational biology community, but it has already reinforced a lesson we will carry forward: even when the answer is uncertain, follow a simple question and see where it leads. You may discover something you never expected to find.

Further reading

• Yao J., Song A., Baerenfaller K., Zhakparov D. Residue-Level Attributions in Protein Language Models Do Not Recover Allergen Epitopes. arXiv:2606.22181 (2026). https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.22181

It was none other than ETH Zurich alumnus Albert Einstein who cut the red ribbon marking the inauguration of the ETH Zurich Campus Heilbronn. As President Joël Mesot jokingly said, “for good reason: he is ETH Zurich’s most famous alumnus named Albert, the second most famous being Federal Councillor Albert Rösti.” Rösti was sitting in the front row and represented the Swiss government at the inauguration event.

ETH Zurich looks forward to its collaboration at the Bildungscampus Heilbronn, marking the beginning of a shared journey towards responsible digital transformation.

I have had the privilege to be involved from the very beginning and to play my part in the Heilbronn endeavour in the background. For me personally, the official opening of the ETH Zurich Campus Heilbronn was deeply emotional, satisfying, and rewarding. For ETH Zurich, it marks a milestone in the institution’s history and will have a lasting impact in the coming decades—primarily on ETH Zurich, but also on Switzerland and Europe.

We have come a long way in a very short time. I vividly remember the day in early 2023 when Joël Mesot mentioned to me that he was close to signing a letter of intent with the Dieter Schwarz Foundation (DSS). Not only had I never heard of Heilbronn or of the Bildungscampus that has been developed there since 2010, but I also had no idea what this would mean for the future of ETH Zurich. I only sensed that a physical presence of ETH Zurich on the Bildungscampus Heilbronn—including professorships, research, education, and knowledge transfer, generously funded by the DSS—would have a profound impact on almost every aspect of ETH Zurich, both strategically and operationally.

As a first step, I assembled a working group with the aim of developing a detailed conceptual and operational plan for an ETH Zurich branch in Heilbronn, taking into account all strategic, legal, and communication-related aspects. Our priority was, on the one hand, to identify the issues that needed to be addressed in the short, medium, and long term, with a particular focus on governance and legal matters. On the other hand, knowing that the Bildungscampus Heilbronn was eagerly awaiting ETH Zurich’s arrival, we also identified measures to establish ETH Zurich’s presence in Heilbronn and raise its visibility there as quickly as possible.

Taking the moment of the inauguration of the ETH Zurich Campus Heilbronn as an opportunity to pause and reflect, I admire the courage ETH Zurich has shown in embarking on this journey. Almost everything we are doing, we are doing for the first time, or at least in such a context. There is no prior experience or blueprint we could draw from. And this is exactly what I see as the biggest opportunity for ETH Zurich in Heilbronn: we are not bound by preconceptions; instead, ETH Zurich has the opportunity and privilege to use Heilbronn as a sandbox—a place where we can try out new things and formats, explore, and play.

I am immensely proud of what ETH Zurich has achieved in Heilbronn—now and in the future.

From robotics research in Japan to leading Swissnex locations in Boston, Shanghai, and now Osaka: ETH alumnus Felix Moesner has built a career at the intersection of science, innovation and diplomacy. In this interview, he reflects on how ETH shaped his international journey and shares his advice for students and young alumni aspiring to work abroad.

You grew up in Appenzell, but spent time abroad early on, especially in Japan – first at Toshiba and later during your PhD at the University of Tokyo. What drew you there?

I moved to Zurich after high school, where I started studying electrical engineering at ETH. As you can imagine, the courses were very theoretical at the beginning. I always try to find a way to map it to reality to bring what I learned in theory to reality. So I said: Why not do an internship in some trendy field? At that time, robotics were extremely trendy.

I later also did my Master’s and my PhD in this field – this was more than 30 years ago. It was in Japan and in the United States, where robotics were quite advanced. I chose Japan for an internship on intelligent manufacturing involving AI at Toshiba, which opened the doors into the robotics world. Coming back to ETH, I could bring a lot of insights and knowledge back to the labs and was warmly welcomed to the Institute for Robotics at ETH.

How has ETH shaped your life – both professionally and personally?

To have the ETH “rucksack” really opens many doors around the world and you learn to think structurally and strategically. On the other hand, it opens the door to the alumni network. Wherever you go, you find people from ETH – there’s a global network of graduates. This definitely helped me to navigate the world, especially here in Japan. To find a group where you can connect and regularly meet.

What was your biggest takeaway from your studies?

When you study at ETH, you also experience challenges. With these challenges, you learn a technique to find solutions. I think this is the biggest takeaway for me. And as I mentioned before, you have this network of alumni from all over the world. It’s possible to connect with these alumni in a very easy, uncomplicated way.

Which projects at Swissnex in Japan are you most passionate about?

At Swissnex in Japan, we bring talents, knowledge, and ideas together in the field of education, research, innovation, and startups between Switzerland, Japan, and the world. I am especially passionate about one specific project, which was to establish Swissnex in Japan – our doors just opened two and a half years ago.

As you can imagine, this new science consulate was a very big project to realize here in Osaka, which is a very thriving area in Japan, with many Nobel laureates, high-class research institutions, top industrial support, and a lot of places where startups can dock on.

Maybe the main project that really drove the whole team was the Expo 2025 in Osaka. There, we worked very closely with the Swiss Pavilion in fields of academic relations, innovation, and art science. We also had projects organized with ETH during that time – one of them was the Swiss-Japan Energy Days, where we brought both countries together to talk about urgent needs in the field of energy and trends for the future.

Other areas involve startups coming from Switzerland that we introduce to the market in Japan. Or, we had just recently one large exhibition with events, screenings, and workshops as part of our planetary embassy during the whole month of March. Yes, you heard it right: We had a planetary embassy at Swissnex in Japan. We were looking for a format to start a dialogue with the community here. How we see working and living together with the planet and all its species, and how we can build a new form of diplomacy to do that.

What do you find challenging?

The Japanese language is one of the main challenges. However, it gives me the motivation to master it. Now, I’m quite fluent in Japanese and can be super productive in this environment and navigate through the culture in Japan.

What does a typical day in your work look like – or is there even such a thing?

A typical thing we do is trend scouting. We also link the trends back to Switzerland and find ways how to add value. What I most enjoy is trying new things, new formats. I tell my team: The sky’s the limit. So, please try. And if mistakes happen, it is a part of the learning curve. I think this really opens a lot of potential to think out of the box.

What’s your favorite difference between the stations you lived at?

Being with Swissnex, I had the chance to be in four different places – starting in Tokyo, then Boston, then in Shanghai for China, and now back in Osaka for Japan. Looking at the differences, when you go from Japan to Boston: it’s very academic. Being situated between MIT and Harvard, you can really feel it.

Moving from Boston to China, you have the feeling that the people are extremely pragmatic. It’s possible to do projects that are considered impossible. We had a drone race in the embassy, for example.

Moving back to Japan, you see that there are many similarities between Japan and Switzerland. I find it extremely enjoyable to work with startups because they speak the same language of quality & high standards in Switzerland and here in Japan – the level is extremely high. This is what the companies in Japan appreciate when they meet Swiss startups for the first time.

As an ETH alumnus, what still connects you to your alma mater, and what do you value most about being part of the ETH Alumni community?

We have a global Swissnex network, and we host alumni events. Here in Japan, for example, we do this on purpose during the Sakura season, when we have the cherry blossoms, and we invite all the alumni together. It’s a wonderful opportunity to connect, reconnect, and meet new friends.

What advice would you give ETH students or young alumni who aspire to an international career?

I can only say “yokoso”, which means “warmly welcome” in Japanese. If you are a young student or a young alumnus or alumna from ETH, please reach out globally, because, without international reach, the world is extremely small. It broadens your horizon to go internationally. ETH is already one of the most international universities in the world. With the “rucksack” from ETH, you can easily experience the whole world.

So, whenever you’re around abroad, don’t hesitate and reach out to the alumni chapters that are present in all corners of the world. And they’re more than happy to welcome you.

Please click here to watch the video excerpt on the ETH Alumni Instagram account.

This interview transcript was originally published by ETH Alumni on 18 June 2026.

The world is in the grip of a housing crisis of historic proportions. The World Cities Report 2026 (UN-Habitat), launched at the World Urban Forum 13 (WUF13) earlier in May this year, left us genuinely struck by the scale: 3.4 billion people lack adequate housing, the global deficit grew from 251 to 288 million units between 2010 and 2023, and climate hazards could destroy 167 million more homes by 2040. Yet what moved us equally was seeing, across five days of the forum, the breadth of local solutions from every region of the world, approaches grounded in community, place and governance, yet pointing toward the same conclusion: that this crisis demands systemic change, not just technical fixes. It was against this backdrop that we arrived in Baku not only to witness the debate, but to contribute to shaping it.

Fernando Túlio Franco: Brownfields, Bus Corridors and the Climate–Housing Nexus

I arrived with a dual agenda: a WUF Academy keynote on The Climate-Housing Nexus Dialogue, exploring how decarbonisation and socio-territorial inequalities can be addressed together, and a C40/Arup/Urban Partners panel on brownfield regeneration, Europe’s most underused lever for tackling the housing and climate crises. My presentation drew on the Sarajevo Code design studio and a São Paulo case study, weaving together legal frameworks, social housing policies, participatory governance, and Land Value Capture mechanisms.

Mashael Yazdanie: Urban Energy, Sufficiency and Resilience

I brought an integrated urban energy, sufficiency, and resilience perspective to four WUF13 sessions, with a focus on housing, governance, and citizen participation: a UNDP-hosted dialogue on resilient housing systems; two sessions on citizen participation and disaster preparedness at the NGO Pavilion; and a session on translating global housing commitments into local action at the Azerbaijan Pavilion, co-convened with Tural Aliyev. My research asks a question rarely posed at large forums: how much is enough to live well within ecological limits? In Baku, I opened conversations about the governance and citizen engagement levers needed to make sufficiency a viable urban strategy.

Tural Aliyev: Governing the Housing Crisis Across Scales

I spoke across three panels on citizen participation, disaster preparedness, and cross-scale housing governance. Being in Baku carried a particular resonance: as a Swiss researcher with Azerbaijani origins at ETH Zurich, I embody the bridge between local knowledge and international academic excellence that WUF13 sought to build.

What Comes Next

A further highlight was the Swiss Ambassador reception, bringing together SECO representatives, senior UN officials, and researchers: a vivid example of science–policy–practice in action.

WUF13 is not an endpoint. The Baku Call to Action calls for housing to be reprioritised as a human right, for stronger state stewardship over land and finance, and for the next decade of World Urban Forums to be a decade of action. Bridging academy and city, connecting evidence to policy, designing at the intersection of climate, housing, and society; this is what we bring back from Baku. The work continues.

Allegra! My name is Laura. I am a Computational Biologist currently finishing up my Master’s degree at ETH. For the past three months, I have been based at SIAF (Schweizer Institut für Allergie- und Asthmaforschung) working on an ETH Studio Davos project: building an isoform-specific database of the human proteome.

A Deep Dive into Immunology

Before the project even really started, I was invited to attend the World Immune Regulations Meeting (WIRM) organised by SIAF. It was an intense, whirlwind week of absorbing research from world-class immunologists, enjoying fantastic food, and networking with more people than I could keep track of. Especially the Gala Dinner on the last night was a lot of fun. I could not believe that a hundred immunologists would get up as soon as the music starts and dance for hours. I’m very grateful to my supervisor, Katja Baerenfaller, for inviting me to my first-ever scientific conference.

Life in the Alps

SIAF is located outside of the already remote mountain village of Davos. I was really excited to spend three months in the spring here to enjoy the change of seasons. I saw the mountains go from deep winter snow to the slow thaw that turns the landscape vibrant green. The Swiss Alps are one of my favorite places on earth and I think everybody should come here once in their life to go hiking and biking in the summer or skiing in the winter. During my time here, I managed to squeeze in some skiing with friends and went on some runs to explore Davos as the weather warmed up. The view from my office has gone from snowstorms in the middle of a really cold winter to beautiful snowy mountain tops and flowers blooming in the spring and early summer.

The Project

While the landscape was breathtaking, I spent the majority of my time in front of my computer. I was tasked with setting up a protein database—a challenge, considering I started with very little experience in database management. It was a steep but rewarding learning curve, offering me deep insights into how databases are structured and the nuances of proteomics data.

Once the database was ready, we re-ran data from previous lab experiments. The results are looking quite promising! I’m very happy with how the project has turned out and grateful for the time I’ve spent here.

I am Chloé, and while many space paths seem to point towards the USA, NASA or JPL, I felt drawn to Japan, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and a culture I knew would challenge me far beyond science. As part of the first cohort of a new programme, there was no established exchange path yet, so getting here meant searching, asking, hoping and slowly finding my own way.

Then Prof. Louise Harra from PMOD/WRC connected me with Prof. Toshifumi Shimizu at JAXA/ISAS, who accepted me as a student on a SOLAR-C related project studying the Sun and space weather. I was incredibly happy, but also thought: “Okay, now this is actually happening.”

The months before leaving were intense: visa papers, housing, exams and goodbyes all came at once. I chose to live in Tokyo to fully experience the city, knowing it would be overwhelming. I left Switzerland excited and nervous, hoping the path would start to make sense once I walked it.

Arriving in Japan was beautiful, but also very humbling. One of the first big challenges was the language. Japanese is not only a new language for me, but also a completely different writing system. Actually, three writing systems. Before coming here, I had learnt hiragana and katakana, but suddenly I was standing in front of a washing machine covered in kanji, trying to understand how to do laundry with Google Translate and AI. It sounds funny now, and in some way it was, but in that moment I realised how many simple things become difficult when you are far away from home.

My commute to JAXA/ISAS in Sagamihara became a daily lesson in humility, from taking the wrong train between local, (semi) express and rapid express lines to navigating Shinjuku Station like an escape room until, after two weeks, I finally found my way to work.

At JAXA/ISAS, I was welcomed with so much kindness, but being a student surrounded by experienced researchers and scientists can still feel intimidating. In my thesis meetings, several supervisors, postdocs and senior scientists join to discuss my progress, and although I am grateful for their support, I sometimes feel a quiet pressure to prove that I belong there. After one of my first meetings, I felt completely overwhelmed and out of place, unsure of my results, my words and whether I belonged in science at all. I wanted to talk to someone, but with the language barrier and my lab friends speaking Japanese, even sharing that frustration felt difficult. That day, I went home angry at myself, lay in bed and seriously wondered whether I should return to Switzerland.

I think this is one of the most honest parts of my journey here. I am still learning how to take up space in the space world. Not as someone who already knows everything. Not as someone who is always confident. But as someone who is curious, hardworking, sometimes overwhelmed, and still trying.

And then there are the small moments that make everything feel warmer. Every morning, a Japanese student in my lab teaches me a little kanji. We talk about our days, our weekends, our favourite things, and slowly I learn more than just characters. I learn small pieces of language, culture and friendship. In the afternoon, we often have oyatsu, a snack time where people gather, share sweets and talk. Sometimes I learn a new phrase. Sometimes I try to guess the meaning of a kanji. Sometimes I just listen and enjoy being part of it.

My lab also has a tradition of bringing souvenir snacks from trips. Each snack is recorded in a book with its origin and taste. I really love this. It is such a small thing, but it says so much about the group. These small rituals have helped me feel less like a visitor and more like someone who is slowly becoming part of a place.

Not every day feels easy. Even after three months, the language barrier still makes me feel lost, and I still doubt myself sometimes. But almost halfway through my stay, I also see myself changing: finding my way, asking more questions, and learning that feeling unsure does not mean failing.

This journey is about more than my master’s thesis at JAXA/ISAS. It is about finding courage in small moments, following a path that was not clearly laid out for me, and slowly making it mine.