Dieter Max Imboden is Professor emeritus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) at Zurich. He studied theoretical physics in Berlin and Basel and received his doctoral degree from ETH Zurich. His interest for the environment, led him to the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California, to MIT, Caltech and other universities. From 1998 to 1999 he was the director of novatlantis, an interdisciplinary project of ETH on sustainable development. 

Imboden has been Professor of Environmental Physics at ETH Zurich from 1988 to 2012. He was one of the founders of the new Department of Environmental Sciences and acted as its Chair from 1992 to 1996. From 2005 to 2012 he was President of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). From 2009 to 2011 he chaired the association of the heads of European research councils (EUROHORCs) and was the initiator and founding president of its successor organisation Science Europe. He also chaired an international expert commission to evaluate the German Excellence Initiative between 2014-2016.