On the recommendation of ETH President Joël Mesot, the ETH Board appointed several new ETH professors during its meeting on 10 and 11 July 2019. Amongst them Dr. David Kaufmann (*1985), currently a post-doctoral student at the University of Bern, as Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Spatial Development and Urban Policy. David Kaufmann’s research focuses on the analysis of governance processes and policy formulation in cities and metropolitan regions. He is interested in locational policies in densely populated areas and in multi-level systems. At ETH Zurich he will launch research projects on densification strategies in spatial planning and on participative policy processes in cities. By appointing David Kaufmann, the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering is strengthening its interdisciplinary research in the field of spatial and urban development.