Prof. Dr. Leonardo Degiorgi

Leonardo Degiorgi was awarded the title of Professor at ETH Zurich in 2005. He was Coordinator (Delegierter) of the Department of Physics from 2004 until 2019 and he is head of the Optical Spectroscopy Group at the Laboratory for Solid State Physics. Magneto-optical investigation of strongly correlated systems and of novel materials with peculiar ground states is the main topic of his research activity.

Leonardo Degiorgi was born on December 18th 1960 in Lugano. He studied Physics at ETH Zurich from 1980 to 1985 and got his PhD. degree in 1990. After a two years (1990-1992) Postdoc stage at the University of California in Los Angeles, he took over the leadership of the optical spectroscopic group at ETH Zurich, as associate researcher (Oberassistent). In 1996 he got the degree of lecturer in physics (Privatdozent). In November 1999 he was promoted to the Assistant Professor position. He also got an offer as Associate Professor at the High Magnetic Field National Laboratory in Tallahassee Florida (in 1998), at University of Cincinnati (in 2000), at University of Paris-Sud (in 2001), and as a full Professor at University of Fribourg (in 2004).

In 1990 he was awarded with the ETH-prize for his PhD. thesis, in 1992 with the ETH-Tokyo Institute of Technology prize and in 1996 with the University Latsis prize. From 1994 to 2000 he was also holder of the Profil 2 scholarship of the Swiss National Science Foundation. For his engagement in teaching he was awarded the ETH Golden Owl in 2012.