After forty years as a career diplomat in the Austrian Foreign Service, Michael Zimmermann joined Clare Hall as an Honorary Fellow in 2023.

His most recent assignment was as Austrian Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, and his association with Cambridge goes back more than twenty years, when he was director of the Austrian Cultural Forum London and started the Max Perutz lecture series in co-operaton with Peterhouse, as well through projects with the Wittgenstein Archive to support the ongoing “Wiener Ausgabe” edition of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s manuscripts.

In addition to his postings in London, Michael served in Côte d’Ivoire, in Japan, in Iran, as Austrian Ambassador to Hungary and as permanent representative to the Danube Commission. He was closely involved in setting up the UNAFHIR humanitarian mission in Iran in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, and in 1994 participated in the UN observer mission to the first post-civil-war elections in Moçambique.

Michael graduated with a doctorate in law from the University of Vienna, and is an alumnus and member of the Hall of Fame of the Diplomatic Academy Vienna.

He was elected Honorary Senator of Andrássy University Budapest, and acted as a trustee of educational and health institutions.