A Life Driven by Curiosity: Martin Vetterli Looks Back on His Journey
Martin Vetterli - 2017 EPFL/François Wavre
For Martin Vetterli, science has always been more than research — it’s a dialogue between ideas, people, and time. As he prepares to close his chapter at EPFL, he looks back on a journey defined by curiosity, collaboration, and a constant drive to turn knowledge into something that serves society.
Few professors have left as meaningful a mark on EPFL as Martin Vetterli. Researcher, mentor, and former president of the school, he has spent his career connecting ideas, people, and disciplines, convinced that innovation is not separate from academia but part of its very essence. As he approaches retirement, he looks back with calm satisfaction and the same curiosity that has guided him from the beginning.
“This year I’ve been visiting my former PhD students, about 80 of them,” he says. “It’s been fascinating to see people I worked with forty years ago and those who graduated just recently. After these intense years, it’s nice to return to a more balanced rhythm.”
For Vetterli, leading EPFL was above all a matter of responsibility — the task of maintaining excellence while nurturing a vibrant research environment. Over eight years as president, he helped guide the institution through a time of expansion and transformation, continuing a collective effort to strengthen its research culture and international reach. He sees those years as an opportunity to serve rather than to shape things alone.
“I was still a professor at heart,” he reflects. “Even when you take on an administrative role, you remain part of a much larger project, one that belongs to many people. It was a privilege to contribute to that.”
His path to leadership began in Switzerland but was shaped by experiences abroad. He studied at ETH Zurich and Stanford, earned a Ph.D. from EPFL, then taught at Columbia University and UC Berkeley before returning to EPFL. Those years, he explains, were not just about discovering another system. They were about learning new ways to think about research and academic life. "At 30, I was given complete freedom, and full responsibility," he recalls. "You quickly learn how to manage a lab, mentor students, and create something new. That experience completely changed how I saw academia."
Upon returning to Switzerland, he brought with him a conviction that good science depends on collaboration, perspective, and time — values that would later shape how EPFL approached research and innovation.
Beyond teaching and research, Vetterli has always believed that innovation and technology transfer are essential parts of a professor’s mission. “Innovation is not a side activity,” he says. "It's at the core of what a public university should do, turning scientific knowledge into something that benefits society."
This philosophy guided his work at the Audiovisual Communications Laboratory (LCAV), which generated 75 technologies and 163 patents over the years and inspired several successful startups, including Dartfish, Vidinoti, and Artmyn. "It's not about consulting," he explains. “It’s about transforming high-quality research into technology while maintaining independence and curiosity.”
For him, innovation has always been a process and a way of thinking that connects curiosity, responsibility, and the desire to make ideas useful. “In engineering and life sciences, our work has to be in osmosis with society,” he says. "Otherwise, at some point, the connection between universities and the public is lost."
As he prepares to close his lab, Vetterli’s curiosity remains intact, even if his daily life will look different. He does not plan to supervise new students, but he intends to stay engaged with questions linking science, ethics, and communication and to remain open to dialogue and reflection. “I’m not going to do active research,” he admits, “but I still have questions I’d like to explore, about AI, the communication of science, and the impact of technology on research.”
His advice to young researchers is realistic yet encouraging: “Choose your Ph.D. advisor carefully. Find someone generous who will help you grow. Research is hard, after every success you have to start again from scratch. But if you love freedom and curiosity, there’s no better job in the world.”
In the end, what remains of a career like his is perhaps not a single achievement, but rather a way of thinking: a patient trust in ideas, in people, and in time. As he steps into a quieter rhythm, that quiet trust continues to speak for him.
