A life dedicated to research
They’ve spent much of their life in the service of research – even beyond retirement. Five people tell us why they’re still fascinated by science and scholarship.
Claude-Alain Roulet | Photo: Maurice Haas
“I’m a soul who likes tinkering; I like hands-on projects”.
“I was appointed professor six months before my retirement, after spending 32 years in research and teaching. My scientific career at EPFL was mainly focused on building physics, during which time I was a research associate and lecturer. I remained from start to finish in the same institution, with the exception of one year spent in industry. That’s no longer possible today. I felt anchored in Switzerland with my young family and having built a house, and I saw no reason to leave to seek elsewhere what I already had here. Working with research groups in joint projects allowed me to visit other countries.
“I’m a soul who likes tinkering; I like hands-on projects. But what interests me above all is understanding how things work. My training as a physicist clearly defined my identity; I see myself as a rationalist. But I am not a fundamentalist: just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean it can’t exist. An attitude of openness is needed; that’s crucial in research.
“Throughout my career I’ve observed an increase in red tape, with more standards, directives, checks. There was a lot of trust at the time; the top priority was delivering results. I see too that research is accelerating, with topics that are often more ephemeral, as well as more opportunities.
“I continued delivering classes at EPFL for several years after retiring in 2006 and I work as a building physics consultant for architects and the courts. I was one of the first in this field in Switzerland, but it’s much broader today; you frequently find people who’ve taken my classes or worked with me. When I look over my science career, I tell myself that actually I’ve had good fun!”
Margit Osterloh | Photo: Maurice Haas
“You have to cope with opposition”.
“I’m the research director of a small, private research institute that I set up together with my husband and colleagues because we wanted to continue doing research during retirement. One of my topics is gender economics. Last year, together with my colleague Katja Rost from the University of Zurich, I tried to find out how to explain the ‘leaky pipeline’ at universities – that’s when women leave academia early. We found that many women are very family-orientated – and it was no different for me back in my day. When my son was born, it was clear that my then husband would do his doctorate before I did mine. I never questioned it – just like many women fail to do today.
The Sunday newspaper ‘Sonntagszeitung’ announced the results of our study with a rather sensational headline: ‘Women prefer having a successful husband to pursuing a career themselves’. Pandemonium ensued. But you have to cope with opposition.
“I’d originally studied engineering management, but had first spent many years working in the practical side of the field. Back then, nobody wanted to call on my engineering skills. That’s why I moved into business administration, where I did my doctorate. And then I got into organisational theory, which complemented my husband’s subject very well. He’s a professor of political economy. There are many parallels between them: Good institutional structures are as crucial to the success of companies as to the smooth functioning of a nation state.
“I’ve always worked a lot – though it never really seemed like work to me. I’ve only ever done what I find fun. I didn’t become a professor until I was 47, and had a wonderful time at the university. But I don’t know if I’d still want to do it all again today. I’m afraid the high level of autonomy that I enjoyed has gone for good. Freedom of research is being severely restricted by excessive bureaucracy and the awful ranking system. But my ongoing dialogue with colleagues and young people remains very important to me. It challenges me”.
Manfred Daum | Photo: Maurice Haas
“For me, there’s nothing more fascinating than particle physics”.
“I joined what was then called the Swiss Institute for Nuclear Research as a young physicist back in 1971. My first task was to calculate the proton beam of the accelerator that was planned at the time, then to build it and get it working. I was extremely successful with it, so my then boss at ETH Zurich offered me a topic for a doctoral thesis, namely an attempt to determine the mass of the muon neutrino.
“I was repeatedly asked why I never went on to do my habilitation. One of my colleagues, a highly talented lecturer who’d done his, had applied unsuccessfully for many professorships. I wanted to spare myself having to run that gauntlet, especially since I was allowed to work on many fundamental experiments at our own Institute. I was extremely pleased to be able to give the compulsory lecture on nuclear and particle physics as a guest lecturer at the University of Fribourg in 2009 and 2010.
“I retired in 2008, but was allowed to continue working on interesting projects – though without any salary, of course. We had a new director at the time, who said: “You can stay here until you’re carried out of the building feet first”. These days, I go to the Institute for half a day, between one and three times a week. I share an office with doctoral students who could be my grandchildren. I still make a useful contribution. Conversely, the young people there teach me how to keep up-to-date with mobile phones and computers.
“For me, there’s nothing more fascinating than particle physics – seeing what holds the world together at its innermost level. To give you an example: when the Big Bang happened, it must have created as much matter as antimatter. But however far into space you look, you find almost no antimatter at all. We’re investigating this fundamental question – and in this way, science can become addictive, in a positive sense.
“For a long time, I was a keen footballer. And I still go on ski tours. Sometimes I’d ask myself during an experiment: What have we overlooked? And the solution would often come to me in the mountains. Nature airs your mind”.
Franziska Rogger | Photo: Maurice Haas
“I’m happy when I find something that no one before me has discovered”.
“My life has been determined by three different things: my family and kids, then my job as an archivist at the University of Bern to earn my living, and then my research. The demands of my family have decreased, and my private research is now my core concern. I also took early retirement just so that I could dedicate myself to it.
“I studied in Bern and Berlin and wrote my doctoral thesis on the history of labour. But I never wanted to do my postdoctoral habilitation. I probably wouldn’t have made a very good professor. If there’s one thing that I can do, then it’s research. For example, I’m delighted when I find an old photograph after conducting a meticulous search. There’s something about it that’s akin to journalism. I also worked as a freelance journalist for newspapers in Lucerne for 10 years. As an archivist, I received a lot of inquiries for specific holdings and realised that some professors were simply looking for files to confirm what was already published. They weren’t interested in the bigger picture, in the context or in anything notable that diverged from what they wanted. In my eyes, however, research has to encircle an object from all sides.
“I focussed mostly on the history of women, especially the history of the first women students and lecturers at the University of Bern. One of them was the philosopher Anna Tumarkin. She became a professor in Bern and was actually the first woman professor anywhere in Europe. I’ve just written a book about her. It’s important to me that research should have a practical use. That’s why I’m also delighted to have been able to become involved in projects such as the multimedia show on the square outside parliament about the 50th anniversary of votes for women, and the film ‘The pacifist’ about the chemist Gertrud Woker.
“I’m happy when I find something that no one before me has discovered. Life is so beautiful, because we can always discover something new. Without my research, I’d now be living a life beyond curiosity. I see that in some of my acquaintances who’ve retired from their jobs. They’re bored. I find that dreadful”.
Isabelle Taibi | Photo: Maurice Haas
“My work is a privilege”.
“I decided against doing a thesis. I’m an engineer and I’m interested above all else in hands-on projects. The classic academic career with never-ending postdocs abroad seemed a bit precarious and I saw many talented colleagues leave due to having few prospects. That’s not an attractive life for me. At the intersection of research and computing, I wasn’t on the front line alongside the professors. But that never bothered me. I was lucky to work on inspiring science projects with skilled people from around the world. It’s a privilege, I think.
“I worked for 15 years at the Atomic Energy Commissions in Grenoble and later Paris. There I developed IT tools for biology, robotics and nuclear power plants. I then went to work on space, spending five years in a company involved in the INTEGRAL observatory.
“I returned to academia when the University of Geneva offered me a place in the international programme Gaia, another astronomical observation satellite that was charting a unique map of the skies, with data on more than 1.5 billion objects – a fantastical project that had to process gigantic amounts of data. I was impressed by the enthusiasm of my co-workers and loved working at the frontier of technology and knowledge.
“I retired three years ago. I still read the latest scientific articles I contributed to, but otherwise I’ve moved on. I spend my time canoeing and singing, and also fixing up our home and developing our permaculture kitchen garden. I’ve always been a tinkerer and I love learning new methods on the Internet. My children are a mathematician, a philosopher and a judge – they’re somewhat abstract professions for me. I’m still an engineer at heart”.
