From board sports to cutting-edge research
Johan Gaume has been Associate Professor of Alpine Mass Movements at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at ETH Zurich since October 2022. Beyond that, he is also an excellent snowboarder. In this welcome interview, Gaume explains how he combines profession and hobby with his avalanche research.
Professor Gaume, welcome to ETH! What are your current research interests?
As a mountain practitioner, I have always been amazed and scared at the same time by forces of nature like avalanches and wanted to get a better understanding. While most of my past work was related to the modeling of snow and avalanches, my current research activities also include other types of gravitational mass movements and processes such as rockfalls, debris flows and permafrost instabilities as well as the impacts of climate change. For that purpose, my collaborators and I develop and use advanced numerical methods supported by new laboratory and field experiments.
What is the impact of your research on society?
Through a better modeling of alpine mass movements and their impacts on infrastructure, our research contributes to a better prediction and management of the associated risk and to the development of sustainable mitigation solution. This is extremely important for society, especially in a context of climate change and increasing demographic pressure in alpine regions. We are currently developing the next generation of numerical models for mass movements which will be used as support for engineering offices and public agencies but also to refine empirically-based guidelines used in practice.
Where were you working before you came to ETH?
I did my engineering studies and PhD in Grenoble after which I did a PostDoc at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Davos. In 2016, I joined EPFL as a Research and Teaching Associate and I was fortunate to do extensive visits to the Mathematics Department of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Computer Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2019, I became an Assistant Professor and head of the Snow and Avalanche Simulation Laboratory at EPFL. Most of my past work at EPFL was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation which I take the opportunity to gratefully acknowledge.
Which courses will you be teaching at ETH?
I will teach two classes at the Master level: Granular Mechanics a fascinating scientific topic at the edge between solid and fluid mechanics with numerous applications in industry and geophysics. I will propose a class with live experiments and training on particle-based numerical methods to be used in semester projects. The second class on Alpine Mass Movements will come later and will be strongly engineering-oriented with on-site visits, design of mitigation measures and used of practice-oriented models such as the software RAMMS developed at the SLF in Davos.
What do you do if you have a few minutes to spare?
I spend most of my free time with my wife and two children. Moreover, I do a lot of “board” sports like snowboarding (former professional) and skateboarding. I like to play the guitar, to bike to spend time in the forest hunting mushrooms… I am also involved in outreach activities, each year I participate with some snowboard friends in the organization of an avalanche education event called the Safety Shred Days which brings awareness to the general public, kids and pros through conferences and practical workshops.
What advice would you give to students who are just starting out in civil engineering?
In the context of digitalization and the extensive use of computer-based approaches in industry and in research, I would suggest them to get training in programming and numerical analysis. But I would also recommend to have a very good understanding of the underlying physics and to think deeply and be aware of the range of application and limitations of the methods they use. Finally, even if we have challenging times ahead of us, have fun solving fascinating real-world mechanical problems!
To the research group of external pageProf. Johan Gaume