Vice President Medicine

Prof. Dr. Beatrice Beck Schimmer studied human medicine at the University of Bern and gained her habilitation at the University of Zurich in 2003. From 2005 to 2018, she was Chief of Service at the Department of Anesthesiology at the University Hospital Zurich. She has been a full professor of anesthesiology since 2009, performing basic, translational as well as clinical research.

Her research areas include organ protection through the application of volatile anesthetics and topics of nanomedicine, and she has secured competitive third-party funding for both of these areas on numerous occasions. From 2012 to 2018, she was a member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and from 2016 to 2018 President of the specialized committee on careers as well as a member on the SNSF’s Presiding Board. In addition, she held the role of Vice Dean for Academic Career Development and Equal Opportunities at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zurich from 2017 until mid-2018. Beatrice Beck Schimmer has played an active part in promoting academic career development, particularly when it comes to career planning for women (mentoring program and the 'Filling the Gap' career support program of the Faculty of Medicine).

As Vice President Medicine Zurich, she is in charge of the leadership and management of the Faculty of Medicine together with the dean and deputy dean. She is responsible for the strategic development of university medicine in cooperation with the University of Zurich, ETH Zurich and the University’s hospitals. The goal is to optimally coordinate the three areas of research, teaching and healthcare in Zurich.