At ICCE 2023, held in Venice, Italy, Prof. em. Dr. Walter Giger received the 2023 EuChemS DCE Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Chemical Society, Division of Chemistry and the Environment (EuChemS DCE).
As current DCE Chair Prof. Ioannis Katsogiannis stated at the opening ceremony of the conference on 11 June 2023, Walter Giger has been a leading figure in environmental chemistry in Europe for many decades. He has built an impressive reputation as outstanding scientist and internationally renowned expert on all aspects of organic contaminant research and trace analysis in the environment. Based in Zurich, Switzerland, with leading positions at EAWAG (Chemistry Department; Division of Chemical Pollutants) and ETH (Professor for Environmental Chemistry), Walter Giger has held numerous prestigious positions at other institutes worldwide, notably in the USA and Australia. Walter Giger is best known for his seemingly endless and unbridled energy with which he stimulates and guides his colleagues and students.
Throughout his career, Dr. Giger focused his research on the development and applications of chemical analytical methods (organic and inorganic separation techniques) for trace analysis of environmental pollutants. Dr. Giger belongs today to the top-rated environmental chemists globally acknowledged for his key contributions to the elucidation of pollutant fate in the environment. His outstanding position is documented and recognized in various awards, including the Medal of Honor for achievements in training and research in Vietnam, the Legend of Environmental Chemistry Award, American Chemical Society 2008 (ACS), and a personalized Tribute Issue of Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T). Dr. Giger dedicated his scientific career to research on the environmental fate and distribution of anthropogenic pollutants with specific emphasis on the elucidation of what are nowadays termed “emerging pollutants” by analytical method development, fate and behaviour studies, and environmental monitoring.
As expert on environmental chemistry, Dr. Giger is/was editor and/or member of numerous editorial boards for international renowned peer-reviewed journals including Environmental Science and Technology (EST, Editor), Environmental Science and Pollution Research (ESPR, Editor) and Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (ABC, Editorial Board). In addition to serving as DCE Chair, he was instrumental as coordinator, chair/member of committees for the organization of many international conferences in environmental research on aspects in method development and contaminants research, including the International Conference on Chemistry and the Environment (ICCE).
Dr. Giger consciously and successfully combined his research work with university education as ETH Professor in Zürich (Switzerland). As author and co-author of around 224 ISI registered peer-reviewed publications (status 20.03.2023), Dr. Giger belongs today to the most cited authors in Environmental Sciences worldwide. His outstanding publication record is well documented in the impressive h-index of 72 (18773 Citations, Web of Science).
Walter Giger is widely appreciated as a very open-minded person, always interested to share and actively contribute with his enormous scientific expertise to the knowledge of younger colleagues in their early careers. As an internationally renowned interdisciplinary oriented senior scientist, Dr. Giger is very team-oriented in his scientific work. He is always open for new scientific ideas which he often tested and further developed in his laboratories in the frame of doctoral theses or Post Doctorate projects.
Dr. Walter Giger fully deserves the DCE Lifetime Achievement Award as he actively shaped and served the DCE in uncountable occasions and functions over decades, he has been a gifted and enthusiastic teacher and conveyer of our scientific discipline to colleagues, students and the broader public alike, and he is a world-leading scientist on environmental chemistry research, with a strong interdisciplinary focus on contaminants research.
Published in the Newsletter 6, September 2023, of the EuChemS Division of Chemistry and the Environment.
Author: Willem de Lange, EuChemS DCE Secretary
Lecture at Eawag on October 19, 2023
To honor Walter Giger and to celebrate the award, Eawag was organizing a lecture at Eawag Dübendorf on October 19, 2023
You can access the recording of the talk via the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSz7ag8jeiF4DAXJw_pkbab7uRmiqyZ-Y
David Spichiger, SCS
03.10.2023