Manuela Brunner

Prof. Manuela Brunner is an Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich's Department of Environmental Systems Science and the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) in Davos. Her research focuses on hydro-meteorological extremes, climate impacts in mountain regions, and water resource management under global change. She holds a PhD from the Universities of Zurich and Grenoble-Alpes (2018), with postdoctoral experience at NCAR (USA) and WSL (Switzerland).

Education: B.Sc. (2012) and M.Sc. (2014) in Geography/Climate Sciences from the University of Bern, followed by a PhD (2018) in Geography (co-tutelle) from the University of Zurich and Université Grenoble-Alpes. Notable awards include the SNSF Starting Grant (2023) and multiple AGU Outstanding Reviewer Awards.

Research priorities include flood/drought dynamics, prediction in ungauged basins, and climate change adaptation in alpine regions. Projects include Hydro-SMILE (hydrological extremes in Switzerland) and SynFire (synchronous forest fires under climate change). She leads the Hydrology & Climate Impacts group at ETH/SLF, addressing water cycle changes and extreme event vulnerability.