Hermann Brugger was a general practitioner with the National Health Service in South Tyrol, Italy, and an associate professor at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria. As an emergency physician, he carried out over 2,500 rescue operations for emergency medical services and mountain rescue teams in the Dolomites.

He founded the Institute of Mountain Emergency Medicine at Eurac Research in Bolzano/Italy in 2009 and led it until 2022. He was also the inventor of the extreme climate simulator terraXcube, developed at Eurac Research in Bolzano, Italy.

His research focused on various aspects of emergency medicine in mountain and remote environments, particularly high-altitude medicine and physiology.

He has edited numerous books and book chapters, published over 350 scientific articles on emergency and high-altitude medicine, and has been invited as a keynote speaker at global conferences and events. Brugger furthermore served as president of both the International Commission for Mountain Emergency Medicine (ICAR MedCom) and the International Society of Mountain Medicine (ISMM). A passionate mountaineer and skier, he has climbed numerous peaks across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.