Walter Etter studied biology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, where he received his diploma in Paleontology in 1984 and his PhD in 1990. Interested mainly in the many aspects of paleoecology, he used a two-year post-doctoral stay at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, to compile and survey biological and sedimentological data collected in the California Continental Borderland. Teaching biology and chemistry at a Swiss college, he is currently doing a quantitative analysis of benthic communities in oxygen-depleted marine environments.

Walter Etter is currently teaching highschool/college in Switzerland and is looking for a permanent position. His address is Paláontologisches Institut und Museum der Universitát, Karl Schmid-Strasse 4, CH-8006, Zürich, Switzerland.