He was associate professor at two universities in the USA between 1963 and 1967, before becoming professor of geology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich) between 1967 and 1994, where he promoted experimental geology and built up 5 leading international laboratories in the fields of rock mechanics (geophysics), mass-spectrometry (isotope geochemistry), Quaternary research (paleoclimatology), sedimentology and tectonics.
Professorships & lectureships While Hsu was professor at the Institute of Geology, ETH Zurich between 1967 and 1994, he was invited as lecturer, guest or honorary professor in geology, climatology or oceanography to numerous renowned universities of the world, including Beijing, California (San Diego), Cambridge, Columbia, Florence, Harvard, London, Milan, M.I.T., Moscow, Nanjing, Naples, Ohio, Oxford, Paris, Princeton, Taipei, Tokyo, Toronto, Washington, Woods Hole, Yale etc.
Academic work Hsu participated in the Earth Science Revolution of the 1960s, consolidating Plate Tectonics Theory, and has throughout his life been active in so-called 'Process Oriented Geology', which is in conversation with the evolutionary biology (symbiogenesis) of Lynn Margulis, the Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock, and others.
In geology, his work included sedimentation in isostatically driven tectonic basins, the active margins of continental plates, physical chemistry of evaporite and pelagic diagenesis, documentation of granulite formation, catastrophic consequences of meteorite impacts, extinction of life forms and the limnology of Lake Zurich.
Scientific expeditions and explorations Hsu participated and led 5 deep-sea drilling cruises to the South Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Black Sea.
He also led several international expeditions to Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, South China, California Coast Ranges and the Swiss Alps, travelling to 80 countries for Earth Science.
Inventions Hsu was awarded 16 patents in mining, petroleum, water, carbon, energy and environment management, including the Hydro-Transistor and Integrated Hydrologic Circuit (IHC).
Consultancy Hsu is president of the IHC Technology & Development Corporation (China), senior advisor and chief engineer to the Kenneth Hsu Institute for IHC Development (National Institute Of Earth Sciences, Beijing) and director of the Center for Environmental & Health Engineering (Henan University, Kaifeng).
The Mediterranean Was A Desert, 1982 The book concerned Hsu's work deciphering the Messinian Salinity Crisis and provided a first-hand account of one of the most significant deep-sea drilling cruises ever launched.
In the book, Hsu marshalled "some of the most gripping and controversial geological discoveries of our time to blast Darwin’s claim and to shake the foundations of his evolutionary theory,"[10] showing evidence indicating a meteor collided with the Earth, 66 million years ago, leaving much of it uninhabitable, and warning that a similar event may threaten humanity in the future.
Indeed, the whole course of evolution may be governed by chance, and not reflect at all the slow march from inferior to superior forms so beloved by Victorians, and so deeply embedded in Western thought.
Orell Fussli Verlag [6] Archived 2005-10-01 at the Wayback Machine published the book after an article about Hsu appeared in Bilanz Magazine [7] in 1998.
Hsu is the author or co-author of more than 400 scientific articles on Archaeology, Cancer, Chronon Physics, Climatology, Cosmology, Cytology, Epistemology, Evolution, Fractal Geometry, Gaia, Geology, Heliobiology, History, Hydro-Physics, Languages, Marine Biology, Mathematics, Marine Biology, Music, Oceanography, Palaeontology, Paleoclimatology, Philosophy, Politics, Religion and Symbiogenesis.