Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmidt

Curriculum Vitae Prof. T.J. Schmidt

Thomas J. Schmidt has been Professor and Chair for Electrochemistry at ETH Zürich since 2011 and Head of the Research Division Energy & Environment at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen (Switzerland) since 2018. Between 2011 and 2017, he was Head of the Electrochemistry Laboratory at PSI. Since 2014 Prof. Schmidt is also Director of the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research (SCCER) Heat & Electricity Storage.

He received his University Diploma in Chemistry from the University of Ulm/Germany in 1996 and his PhD in Chemistry from the same University in 2000. That same year he joined the group of P.N. Ross and N.M. Markovic at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a Chemist Postdoctoral Fellow. During this period, he intensively studied the fundamentals of electrocatalysis of fuel cell reactions. He continued to work with G.G. Scherer at Paul Scherrer Institut in Villigen/Switzerland on the development of membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) using radiation-grafted membranes and on oxygen electrocatalysis with oxide containing catalysts. Since fall 2002, he was working in the industrial development of high temperature membrane electrode assemblies and its components (membranes, catalysts, electrodes) using polybenzimidazole based membranes at BASF Fuel Cell GmbH (formerly Pemeas GmbH). During these eight years in industries, Dr. Schmidt led the high-temperature MEA R&D activities as Director R&D and helped to successfully commercialize the BASF Fuel Cell Celtec® MEAs.
In parallel since 2009, he has been working as lecturer for Physical Chemistry at Provadis School of International Management and Technology, University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt/Germany. He holds an Executive MBA degree from EPFL. 

Currently, Prof. Schmidt acts as Associate Editor of the Journal of the Electrochemcial Society.
In fall 2010, he received the Charles W. Tobias Young Investigator Award from the Electrochemical Society. He was awarded the Otto-Monsted Visiting Professorship at the Technical University of Denmark (Lyngby) in 2013. In 2019, he became the Awardee of the C.W. Schönbein Gold Medal of Honor from the Eurpean Fuel Cell Forum. In the same year, he also was named Fellow of the Electrochemical Society.