Curriculum Vitae
Professional development
Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Austria
| 2025/03-present | Head of Global Climate Analysis Research Group |
| 2023/04-present | Dean of the Faculty of Environmental, Regional, and Educational Sciences |
| 2021/10-2023/03 | Vice Dean of the Faculty of Environmental, Regional, and Educational Sciences |
| 2019/10-2023/03 | Director of Wegener Center |
| 2020/10-present | University Professor of Climate Analysis |
| 2019/01-present | Principal Investigator: Field of Excellence Climate Change Graz |
| 2014/03-2023/02 | Faculty Member: FWF Doctoral Programme Climate Change |
| 2010/01-2025/02 | Vice Head of Atmospheric Remote Sensing and Climate System Research Group (ARSCliSys) |
| 2017/10-2020/09 | Associate Professor |
| 2013 | Venia Docendi: Geophysics and Environmental System Sciences |
| 2012/09-2019/09 | Vice Director of Wegener Center |
| 2012/09-2017/09 | Assistant Professor |
Institute of Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry, Graz University of Technology, Austria
| 2012/07-2012/08 | Project Leader |
Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Austria
| 2010/06-2012/06 | Vice Director of Wegener Center (Quality Assurance & Information Management/ IT) |
| 2006 - 2012/06 | Senior PostDoc Scientist and Project Leader |
| 2005 - 2006 | Postdoc Scientist |
Institute for Geophysics, Astrophysics and Meteorology, University of Graz, Austria
| 2003 - 2012 1999 - 2005 1996 - 1998 | Lecturer Postdoc Scientist Scientist (PhD student) |
Academic education
University of Graz, Austria
| 1996-1998 | Ph.D. Natural Sciences in Meteorology and Geophysics (with honors) Ph.D. thesis: High resolution sounding of key climate variables with the aid of the radio-occultation technique |
| 1992-1995 | M.Sc. Geophysics (with honors) M.Sc. thesis: Temperaturinversionen im Grazer Becken und deren Auswirkung auf Luftschadstoffe |
| 1990-1993 | 1st Diploma, Environmental Science |
| 1988-1991 | 1st Diploma, Meteorology and Geophysics |
Research Visits
| 2023/06-08 | Visiting Scientist, UCAR COSMIC Project, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), Boulder, CO, USA |
| 2017/09 | Visiting Scientist, Atmospheric Chemistry Observations & Modeling (ACOM), National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO, USA |
| 2010/07 | Visiting Scientist, COSMIC Project, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), Boulder, CO, USA |
| 2003/08 | Visiting Scientist, GRAS SAF visiting scientist program, Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), Copenhagen, Denmark |
| 1997/08-12 | Biosphere 2 Earth Semester Program "Global Change", Biosphere 2 Center, AZ, USA |
Fellowships, Awards and Recognition
| 2022 | Austria22 – Austrian of the Year in Category Research (DiePresse) |
| 2022 | Research highlight in Nature Climate Change of Meng et al. (2021) |
| 2018 | Frontier article in GRL Maycock et al. (2018), featured as research spotlight in EOS |
| 2018 | Highlight article in Atmos. Meas. Techn. of Wilhelmsen et al. (2018) |
| 2017 | Key scientific article featured in Advances in Engineering, Biondi et al. (2017) |
| 2008 | Femtech Expert (May 2008), Austrian ministry of transport, innovation, and technology |
| 2008 | Recognition of excellent academic achievement, Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Graz |
| 2003 | Burgen Scholar, Academia Europaea, Recognition of excellent academic achievement |
| 1997 | Biosphere 2 Excellence in Research Award |
| 1997 | Biosphere 2 Fellowship of Columbia University, NY, USA; Fellowships of the Austrian Ministry of Science, State Government of Styria, and University of Graz |
Research
Research in the field of atmospheric and climate physics and environmental sciences. Focus on atmospheric remote sensing for climate monitoring and observations for climate analysis, both in the global and the regional context. Major contributions to the establishment of satellite-based radio occultation observations as a new data set for climate research. Research topics comprise atmospheric climate change, its drivers and impacts, trend detection and attribution, analysis of atmospheric variability, dynamics, extreme events and their impacts:
- Analysis, detection, and attribution of climate trends in atmospheric climate data records
- Analysis of climate variability and atmospheric processes including QBO, ENSO, sudden stratospheric warming, gravity wave activity, atmospheric blocking and impacts
- Effects of volcanoes and forest fires on the troposphere and stratosphere
- Detection and attributions of temperature extremes
- Evaluation of observational climate records, global climate model simulations, and reanalyses
- Inter-comparison of RO records and coordination of the International RO Trends working group
- Retrieval, validation, error analysis and characterization of RO data
- Sonification and visualization of climate data
- Climate monitoring and change detection capability of a GNSS RO observing system (OSSE)
- Scientific algorithms of EGOPS software (End-to-End GNSS Occultation Performance Simulator)
- Scientific studies for the Atmosphere and Climate Explorer (ACE+) Mission (ESA EO Phase A)
- Atmosphere - ocean interaction and the carbon dioxide cycle in Biosphere 2
- Effect of temperature inversions on air pollution in urban areas
Activities and International Services
| 2022-present | Scientific Steering Group member of the WCRP Explaining and Predicting Earth System Change (EPESC) Lighthouse Activity |
| 2022-present | Steering Committee member of the Radio Occultation Meteorology Satellite Application Facility (ROM SAF, EUMETSAT) |
| 2021-present | Co-Referee in the field of Geosciences of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) |
| 2021-present | WCRP Regional Focal Point for Region Europe and Western Asia |
| 2020-2023 | WCRP SPARC Science Task Team member |
| 2020-2022 | Advisory Board for Climate Protection of the City of Graz |
| 2019-2023 | Vice chair of the Commission Climate and Air Quality, Austrian Academy of Sciences |
| 2019-2022 | ISSI Bern Team member on observations for the study of middle atmosphere dynamics |
| 2017 | Member of the Science Advisory Panel of Remote Sensing Systems (RSS, USA) on temperature data sets |
| 2016-present | Co-Chair of WCRP/SPARC Activity Atmospheric Temperature Changes and their Drivers (ATC) |
| 2016-2018 | External expert for ESA/EUMETSAT’s Radio Occultation Science Plan Report |
| 2015-present | Board Member of the Austrian Meteorological Society (ÖGM) |
| 2013-2020 | Member of WMO/SCOPE-CM (Sustained, Coordinated Processing of Environmental Satellite Data for Climate Monitoring) - ROCLIM project |
| 2013-2017 | Member of Earth System Science and Environmental Management COST Action ES1303 TOPROF |
| 2011-2015 | Member of WCRP/SPARC Activity Stratospheric Temperature Trends |
| 2010-present | Member of the International Radio Occultation Working Group (IROWG/CGMS) Chair/rapporteur of the IROWG climate subgroup |
| 1999-present | Organizer and Co-Organizer of scientific meetings Editor and Co-Editor of scientific books Associate Editor of international journals Reviewer for international journals Reviewer for projects of EUMETSAT and national science foundations |
Teaching since 2003
More than 100 courses held in total for bachelor, master, and doctoral students in Physics study programmes and in interdisciplinary Environmental System Science programmes:
- Physics (Module Atmospheric Physics and Climate)
- Technical Physics, Space Sciences and Earth from Space (Master programmes)
- Doctoral Schools of Natural Sciences
- Environmental System Sciences (Bachelor and Master programmes)
- International Master in Sustainable Development – Integrating Perspectives
- Doctoral Programme Climate Change
- Doctoral School of Environmental System Sciences
University lectures, seminars, and practical courses on:
- Measurement methods in atmospheric/environmental physics
- Methods of modeling and simulation
- Methods of data analysis and data inversion
- Introduction to remote sensing
- Climate and environmental change
- Sustainable development and integrating perspectives
- Environmental meteorology and bioclimatology
- Interdisciplinary practical training on environmental and climate related topics
- Excursion climate and environmental monitoring
Supervision of BSc, MSc and PhD students in these programmes.