University Of Fribourg

Born in Russia, biochemist Chaim Weizmann was a World Zionist Organization leader and later also became the first president of Israel. He had a major role in the Balfour Declaration. Remembered for his research on industrial fermentation, gasoline, and rubber, he also helped establish the Weizmann Institute.

Gianni Infantino is a Swiss-Italian football administrator, currently serving as the president of FIFA. He studied law at the University of Fribourg and worked as the secretary-general of the International Center for Sports Studies (CIES). He later began working with the UEFA and FIFA. He was implicated in a FIFA corruption scandal in 2016. 

World-class economist Klaus Schwab, who established the World Economic Forum and is also its executive chairman, also has a mechanical engineering degree, along with a doctorate in engineering. He has been a University of Geneva professor and has been awarded a host of honorary doctorates and a French knighthood.

Born in Germany, W. G. Sebald later studied in Switzerland and England. He gained fame with his non-chronological tales of people traumatized by the ravages of war. His novels such as Vertigo and The Emigrants deal with themes of decay and memory. He died while driving around Norwich.

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was a Polish American phenomenologist and philosopher. She is credited with founding the World Phenomenology Institute (WPI) where she remained as the president until her death in 2014. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka also contributed immensely to the popular book series Analecta Husserliana, serving as its editor since its inception in 1968.

While Simonetta Sommaruga has been the president of Switzerland, she is also a talented pianist, trained at the Lucerne School of Music. She later dropped out of a university English course. She has also been the director of the Consumer Protection Foundation and part of committees on energy and the environment.

Theologian Angelo Scola, a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, was named the Archbishop of Milan by Pope Benedict XVI and has also served as the Patriarch of Venice. The son of a truck driver, he later gained a doctorate in Christian philosophy. He has also penned works on bio-medical ethics and sexuality.

Twentieth-century bishop of Münster, Clemens August Graf von Galen, a figure of Catholic resistance, strongly opposed the Nazi T4 program of euthanizing the sick and the physically and mentally disabled. He escaped being executed, as the Nazis had planned to hang him after winning World War II, which never happened.

Herzegovinian Croat historian Leo Petrović had been a priest who scripted history as the first Catholic monk with a PhD from his country. He held various positions, such as those of an abbot, a vicar, and a seminary professor. He was eventually assassinated by communist Yugoslav partisans.

German Catholic priest Rupert Mayer is remembered for his lifelong opposition to Nazism. He had been an army chaplain during World War I and had earned the nickname The Limping Priest after losing a leg to a grenade attack. The Nazis had sent him to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.