Student Projects
Student projects at IFD are usually closely related to current research projects and are supervised by our doctoral students, lecturers and professors. Some projects are conducted in collaboration with academic and industrial partners.
The Process
At IFD we try to assign the projects according to the students' preferences. To make sure that you get the project of your choice, it is best to contact us as soon as possible and preferably a few weeks before the semester starts. For a list of available projects, see the list below.
On the first Friday of each semester, IFD organizes an information event for students who are starting a project at IFD. The event is a great opportunity to meet other students, IFD faculty members, and supervisors. Moreover, detailed information about how student projects are conducted at IFD is given (Download student project guidelines (PDF, 3.3 MB)). Specifics about the event are provided by student supervisors.
Presentations of Bachelor, semester and CSE seminar thesis projects usually take place during the last week of the semester in the room ML H 51 ("Treibhaus"). Master thesis presentation dates are setup individually depending on the corresponding starting dates. Selected posters of projects are showcased on the H-floor of the ML building (poster templates for Download LaTeX (ZIP, 551 KB) and Download MS Word (DOCX, 353 KB) are available).
Snow Saltation Measurements in the Field
Saltating snow is an important phenomenon of mass transport over the snow cover, impacting various processes governing the snowpack evolution. Key to the accurate modelling of snow saltation is the mass flux of snow and shear distribution under drifting and blowing snow conditions. This project will consider field measurements of snow saltation outdoors in the Swiss Alps. The student will build and reproduce an existing snow saltation tracking system using available camera equipment and collocate measurements with a new outdoor holography setup to perform airborne particle characterization. This will acquire novel field data to study mechanisms of snow saltation coupled to sublimation in the near-ground surface layer.
Keywords
Snow Saltation, Drifting and Blowing Snow, Sublimation, Holography, Particle Tracking, Field Measurements
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Semester Project , Internship , Bachelor Thesis , Master Thesis , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2026-02-24 , Earliest start: 2025-08-08 , Latest end: 2026-05-31
Applications limited to ETH Zurich , EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Muller Koen , Coletti Filippo
Topics Information, Computing and Communication Sciences , Engineering and Technology , Earth Sciences , Physics
Investigation of tomographic kidney stone data
Shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) is a non-invasive acoustic treatment used to fragment kidney stones. Micro-computed tomography, which is a form of X-ray imaging enabling three-dimensional reconstruction of a sample space, offers spatial mapping of fracture patterns throughout the stone resulting from treatment. Such damage features arise because of the incident shock-stone surface interactions and from cavitation activity encompassing the stone. Classifying each individual pixel of the reconstructed volume (semantic segmentation), into the corresponding material phases (i.e. stone, water, air) visualizes the development of damage features and opens methods for quantifying the incurred damage.
Keywords
X-ray tomography, shock wave lithotripsy, cavitation, image analysis, kidney stone
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Master Thesis , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2026-01-31 , Earliest start: 2026-02-16 , Latest end: 2026-08-28
Organization Group Supponen
Hosts Brewer Cameron
Topics Engineering and Technology
Propagation-Based Phase-Contrast Imaging with Cold Neutrons: Towards Tomographic Imaging of Weakly Absorbing Metallic Objects
Neutron imaging provides unique opportunity for studying technologically and biologically relevant materials as a complementary modality to other techniques. The increased interest in neutron imaging relies on their strong penetration into metallic materials, their sensitivity to light elements, and the possibility of manipulating contrast via isotope substitution. Among the imaging approaches, propagation based phase-contrast imaging recently showed a promising extension to conventional absorption transmission imaging. This method, well established with synchrotron X-ray radiation, relies on a (partially) coherent beam and carefully controlled experimental conditions to convert phase variations of the incoming wavefront into quantitative measurements. Note that this opportunity is for the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France.
Keywords
phase-contrast imaging; synchrotron radiation; imaging techniques
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Internship
Description
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Published since: 2025-12-12 , Earliest start: 2026-01-01 , Latest end: 2026-12-31
Organization Group Supponen
Hosts Brewer Cameron
Topics Engineering and Technology