Peter Wolf

Peter Wolf studied Sports Engineering at the Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany. During his master thesis he developed a new material test for running shoes simulating the initial stance phase. This procedure has become a standard protocol to be fulfilled by all new running shoes. Peter Wolf carried out his PhD thesis at the Institute for Biomechanics, ETH Zurich. He focused on the dependence of foot motion on foot morphology. This included the establishment of a non-invasive procedure quantifying rearfoot bone rotations and joint curvatures. Additionally, he investigated in vivo kinematics of the mid and rear foot during walking an running using bone anchored markers.

In September 2007, he joined the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab. His research interests include now (i) the design of sport simulators in virtual environments, (ii) the development of devices measuring performance in sports and motor learning, and (iii) the establishment of augmented, real-time feedback displays facilitating motor learning of complex tasks. He also continues his basic research in the field of foot biomechanics.

Peter likes to organise events such as conferences, for instance the external page Rehab Week (2011), the external page Int. Conference on Multisensory Motor Behaviour: Impact of Sound (2013), and the and the International Rock Climbing Research Congress in 2014 and 2023.

Peter was also the first Chief Operating Officer and Finance Manager of the CYBATHLON, which is the world-first championship for athletes with motor disabilities who use robotic technologies to compete in different race tracks. In 2016, together with his organising team and hundreds of volunteers, he welcomed 56 teams who came from 25 nations at the SWISS Arena Kloten. The event was live broadcasted by Swiss national broadcaster SRF and resulted in over 500 articles - published e.g. in Financial Times, New York Times, NZZ, Sports Illustrated, Spiegel, The Herald, Washington Post, Wired, Yumiori Shimbun; a dozen documentaries – e.g. by 3Sat, ARTE, BBC, CBS, CNN, NHK; publications in Nature, Science Robotics and IEEE Spectrum and dedicated special issues of highly ranked scientific journals such as Journal of NeuroEngineering, Rehabilitation or IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, European Journal of Translational Myology. Due to this success, the CYBATHLON has been affiliated to the Office of the President of ETH in 2020. Peter is now a member of the Strategic Council.

A detailed CV can be found Download here. (PDF, 373 KB)