Carl August Zehnder

Carl August Zehnder (born October 5, 1937, in Baden, Switzerland) is a Swiss computer scientist. He studied mathematics at ETH Zurich from 1957, earning his diploma in 1962 and his doctorate in 1965 under Eduard Stiefel and Hans-Rudolf Kunzi with a thesis on the computer based calculation of timetables and transportation schedules, followed by a 1966 to 1967 postdoctoral period at MIT. He returned to ETH in 1967 as deputy head of its newly established Institute of Operations Research, then moved into the growing field of computer science, becoming assistant professor in 1970, associate professor in 1973 and full professor in 1979, and introduced databases as a new ETH research and teaching field. In 1981 he founded the independent Division for Computer Science at ETH together with Niklaus Wirth, Jurg Nievergelt and Peter Lauchli, becoming its first head, and later served the department as vice president from 1987 to 1990 and department head from 1991 to 1997 before retiring in 2003.