Natural Hazards Mission Lead

ETH Zurich seeks a Senior Natural Hazards Mission Lead in Root, CH, to direct R&D portfolios and ensure practical value for Swiss authorities and practitioners.

The company is looking for a senior professional to lead the research, development, and delivery of the GeoLab Natural Hazards Mission. This position is responsible for shaping the mission's vision and ensuring that all activities generate measurable benefits for Swiss public decision-making and professional practice.

Responsibilities

• Develop a comprehensive and unified research and development portfolio for the Natural Hazards Mission.
• Convert identified operational gaps into quantifiable results that provide value to practitioners, authorities, and decision-makers.
• Collaborate with local, cantonal, and federal authorities, infrastructure operators, industry experts, and professional communities.
• Transform operational challenges into specific research, data, product, and technical requirements.
• Define measurable mission outcomes, roadmaps, assumptions, and success criteria aligned with Swiss natural hazard needs.
• Manage the delegated mission budget and define priorities, milestones, decision points, and success criteria.
• Drive pilots, field validation, operational testing, and integration into user workflows with the Intelligence team.
• Assess evidence and performance, and recommend continuation, redirection, scaling, pausing, or termination of activities.
• Identify and mobilize strong ETH groups, research institutions, engineering and geology offices, remote-sensing companies, public agencies, and implementation partners.
• Represent ETH Swiss GeoLab in Swiss natural hazard, scientific, policy, and industry communities.
• Communicate mission goals, progress, evidence, and lessons learned to internal and external stakeholders.
• Guide and train students, researchers, and external contributors where required.

Requirements

• Master’s or PhD degree in natural hazards, geosciences, engineering, risk management, or related fields.
• Several years of experience in natural hazard practice, applied research, public administration, consulting, engineering, or industry.
• Strong expertise and understanding of natural hazards with demonstrated examples of dashboard and tracking tools.
• Proven ability to identify important operational problems and translate them into actionable initiatives.
• Experience in mission, programme, or applied R&D portfolio design.
• Strong project, portfolio, and budget management skills.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills across diverse public authorities, academia, industry, and expert communities.
• Excellent written and spoken English and German.

Nice to have

• PhD degree.
• French language skills.

About the company

ETH Zurich is one of the world’s leading universities specializing in science and technology. The university is renowned for excellent education, cutting-edge fundamental research, and direct transfer of new knowledge into society.

• ETH Zurich is one of the world’s leading universities specializing in science and technology.
• The university is renowned for excellent education, cutting-edge fundamental research, and direct transfer of new knowledge into society.