Michael Grätzel

Michael Grätzel (born 11 May 1944, in Dorfchemnitz, Saxony, Germany) is a professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne where he directs the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces. He pioneered research on energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic-materials and their optoelectronic applications. He co-invented with Brian O'Regan the Grätzel cell in 1988. Grätzel has been called the "father of artificial photosynthesis".

Graetzel is the author of over 1000 publications, two books and inventor or co-inventor of over 80 patents, he has been the Mary Upton Visiting Professor at Cornell University and a distinguished visiting professor at the National University of Singapore, and is currently a distinguished scientist at King Abdulaziz University. He was an invited professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay and Delft University of Technology.