Two ENAC Professors among the Highly Cited Researchers
Prof. Urs von Gunten (left) and Athanasios Nenes (right). © Timo von Gunten/Alain Herzog
Professors Urs von Gunten and Athanasios Nenes of the ENAC School are in the 2021 list of the Highly Cited Researchers. The list includes about 6600 most-cited and influential scientists worldwide, either in their specific field or for their cross-field performance.
The ENAC School is proud to announce that both Professors Urs von Gunten and Athanasios Nenes are in the 2021 list of the Highly Cited Researchers. This privilege indicates that they are recognized as the most-cited and influential scientists worldwide – either in their specific field or for their cross-field performance. Prof. von Gunten has thus been quoted for Environment and Ecology and Prof. Nenes for Geosciences. Professors von Gunten and Nenes both work at EPFL for the Environmental Engineering Institute.
The ranking, provided by Clarivate Analytics, has been published every year since 2014. The list includes researchers who have written several "highly cited papers" in the past decade (2010 to 2020). In 2021, there are 102 researchers from Switzerland and 13 from EPFL among the Highly Cited Researchers, on a total of about 6600. Professor von Gunten has been highly cited for many years; it is the second time for Professor Nenes.
25 years of research experience
Urs von Gunten has more than 25 years of research experience in the field of chemical oxidation processes in water treatment. His main interests are kinetic and mechanistic studies of oxidative transformations of micropollutants and the formation of disinfection by-products through the reactions of chemical oxidants with natural organic material, bromide and iodide, and the resulting (eco)toxicological consequences. In addition to his academic work, he puts great emphasis on the cooperation with practitioners in the water sector. Affiliated both at Eawag and EPFL, he heads the Laboratory for Water Quality and Treatment (LTQE) at ENAC.
Aerosol impacts on clouds, climate, health and ecosystems
Professor Nenes heads the Laboratory of Atmospheric Processes and their Impacts (LAPI) at EPFL since 2018 and is a co-founding member of the Center for the study of Air Quality & Climate Change (CSTACC) at the Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences of the Foundation of Research and Technology-Hellas in Greece. He works at the interface of aerosol science with cloud formation, air quality, biogeochemical cycles and climate through a combination of theory, instrument development, measurement and modeling. His theoretical & modelling work generated open source codes routinely used worldwide for regulatory purposes and climate modelling. Measurement techniques and analysis of field data developed by Prof. Nenes led to simple relationships that accurately describe cloud formation and aerosol properties in climate models. Prof. Nenes also co-invented the Continuous Flow Streamwise Thermal Gradient CCN chamber, an instrument that has revolutionized the measurement of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), which is central for constraining aerosol-cloud interactions and their impact on precipitation and climate.