The Legacy of Switzerland’s First Female Engineering Professor

When Erna Hamburger was appointed full professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 1967, the school's own president acknowledged the moment with a backhanded tribute: "This is both a brilliant achievement and a measure of how far behind our country is in promoting women."

Dr. Erna Hamburger in front of the Grand Hotel in Leysin, Switzerland. Image (modified) used courtesy of Schnäggli via Wikimedia Commons

It had taken Hamburger 34 years from her engineering degree to reach that rank, not for lack of ability, but because Switzerland's institutions were slow to catch up with her.

The Only Woman in the Room

Hamburger was born in Brussels on September 14, 1911, and completed secondary school in Kissingen, Bavaria, first at an all-girls school and then at a gymnasium where she was the sole female student in her engineering classes. She enrolled at the University of Lausanne's School of Engineering and in 1933 received her engineering-electrician diploma, finishing first in her class. She completed her doctorate in technical sciences in 1937 under the supervision of Professor Ernest Julliard, with a focus on electrical measurement systems.

Between her undergraduate and doctoral studies, she held assistant roles at the Industrial Electricity Laboratory and the Physics Laboratory at Lausanne, and was recruited to the Industrial Research Section of the Institute of Technical Physics at Zurich Polytechnic. 

After completing her doctorate, she joined precision manufacturer Paillard SA in Sainte-Croix in 1942 as an electrical engineer. The company produced typewriters, cameras, and precision instruments—work that demanded expertise in the overlap between electrical measurement and high-tolerance manufacturing.

Electrometry and the Push for Standards

Hamburger's technical specialty was electrometry: the precise measurement of electrical quantities, including voltage, current, charge, and resistance. Through the mid-20th century, this discipline became increasingly critical as calibrated measurement underpinned laboratory physics, industrial quality control, and the standardization of electrical components across manufacturing sectors.

In 1952, she returned to EPFL as head of works at its Electrical Laboratory, and in 1957 was named extraordinary professor of electrometry, becoming the first woman to hold any professorship at a Swiss STEM institution. Her elevation to full professor came in 1967.

After retiring in 1979, Hamburger did not step back from the field, and instead, she became active in international commissions working on fundamental electrical standards, contributing to the global effort to harmonize how electrical quantities were defined and measured. She also invested heavily in mentoring students, advocating for women in higher education, and for what she described as an alliance between people, technology, and the environment.

What She Left Behind

Hamburger died in Lausanne on May 15, 1988, but the institutions that followed in her wake have kept her name prominent in Swiss scientific life. 

The University of Lausanne named its largest auditorium after her in 2003. In 2006, the EPFL Women in Science and Humanities (WISH) Foundation, established by female EPFL professors, created the annual Erna Hamburger Prize, awarded each year to a woman who has made an outstanding contribution to science or engineering. 

The EPFL Women In Science and Humanities (WISH) Foundation awards the Erna Hamburger Prize to women scientists who are enacting transformative changes to their fields. Image used courtesy of the EPFL WISH Foundation

Past recipients include Nobel Prize winners May-Britt Moser and Ada Yonath. A road on EPFL's Lausanne campus was also named in her honor in 2022, during a ceremony marking International Women's Day. The Erna Hamburger Foundation, based in Ecublens, continues to provide financial assistance to women pursuing postgraduate studies in the Canton of Vaud.