Prominent ecologist Thomas Crowther, whose research on trees has influenced figures including US President Donald Trump, will depart the prestigious Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) after the institution said that it would not renew his contract. ETH Zurich says it has received “reports of alleged misconduct on a variety of levels” and has lost trust in the assistant professor.
Crowther and ETH Zurich declined to comment on the allegations. Crowther says that he is in talks to relocate his laboratory, which employs 40–60 people.
“The team is doing its best to be resilient, but most of us are in shock, and there is grief over what has been lost,” says Emily Clark, the group’s manager, who describes the atmosphere in the lab as quiet and sad. Members of Crowther’s team were told in mid-December that they would lose their jobs by September because the lab is being dissolved, according to a member who asked to remain anonymous.
Crowther rose to prominence while doing postdoctoral research at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. In 2015, he was lead author on a paper published in Nature1 that suggested there were nearly eight times more trees growing on Earth than expected. His research garnered attention from influential people and inspired the launch a high-profile tree-conservation initiative by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which received support from the first Trump administration. He was dubbed the ‘Steve Jobs of ecology’ and profiled by journals including Nature and Science.
Millions in funding
In 2017, Crowther moved to ETH Zurich on a tenure-track professorship. Within a year, he had secured 17.7 million Swiss francs (US$19.5 million) in funding from a Dutch non-profit foundation called DOB Ecology in Veessen for a 13-year project to understand how ecological processes drive the carbon cycle and climate.
In late 2024, Swiss media reported that eight people had made allegations against Crowther to the university. Details of the allegations have not been reported, and ETH Zurich and Crowther declined to comment to Nature on the content of the press reports.
In a statement to Nature, ETH Zurich said that last July its leadership decided to “have the allegations informally clarified by an external law firm”. It added: “ETH Zurich President, Joël Mesot has decided to no longer employ the scientist following expiration of the scientist’s tenure process. Following a careful evaluation, the ETH Zurich President reached the conclusion that there is no longer a basis of trust for a permanent employment contract.”
Crowther is on administrative leave and his contract, which expires at the end of September, will not be renewed, according to the statement. “The initiated clarifications are still ongoing. Please understand, that we cannot comment further on this matter,” ETH Zurich said.
Crowther told Nature that he is contemplating offers from two institutions, one in Europe and one in Asia, to relocate his lab. “I am still considering where might be the best place for the next phase of the group,” he says.
