Ulrike Diebold (born 12 December 1961, in Kapfenberg, Austria)[1] is an Austrian physicist and materials scientist who is a professor of surface science at TU Vienna.

She ultimately settled on engineering physics, an area with good job prospects that was also general enough to accommodate a variety of future directions.

[5] Diebold's first appointment after graduation was as a post-doctoral research associate in the group of Theodore E. Madey in the department of physics at Rutgers University (1990–1993).

During this time period, she also completed her habilitation in experimental physics (TU Vienna, 1998), held the Yahoo!

In 2005, Diebold and her group were forced to temporarily evacuate from New Orleans, which experienced massive flooding and power outages from the impact of Hurricane Katrina.