Christoph Reigber

Christoph Reigber (born July 8, 1939 in Breslau ) is a German geodesist and professor i. R. at the Institute for Geosciences at the University of Potsdam .

Career

Reigber studied geodesy at the Technical University of Munich between 1960 and 1965 . In 1969 he received his doctorate at the Institute for Astronomical and Physical Geodesy (IAPG) of the Technical University of Munich with a thesis on the subject of determining the earth's gravitational field from satellite observations. In 1970 Reigber joined the Collaborative Research Center “ Satellite Geodesy ” (SFB 78) at the Technical University of Munich. He completed his habilitation in 1974 and until 1986 was a lecturer in the field of astronomical and physical geodesy at the Technical University of Munich and as a project manager in the DFG SFB satellite geodesy. In 1980 Reigber went to the German Geodetic Research Institute DGFI at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich as director of the theoretical geodesy department . In 1982 he was appointed associate professor at the Technical University of Munich. In 1992 Reigber was appointed Director of the Department of Geodesy and Remote Sensing at the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam GFZ in Potsdam and in 1993 was appointed C4 Professor at the Institute for Geosciences at the University of Potsdam. From 2004 to the end of 2008 he was German co-director of the Central Asian Institute for Applied Geosciences (ZAIAG) in Bishkek / Kyrgyzstan.

Act

Central topics of his scientific work are the determination of the global gravity field with the help of satellites, the study of geodynamics and the definition and development of geodetic / geophysical satellite missions. Reigber was the project manager of several major geoscientific projects - the GFZ-1 laser satellite mission (1994-2000), the precision positioning system PRARE on the satellites Meteor 7.3 (1994-1995) and ERS-2 (1995-2005), the gravity and Magnetic field mission CHAMP (1994–2005) and from 1997 to 2009 he played a key role in the realization and use of the GRACE mission as a co-investigator of the US-German GRACE mission . Reigber has served on a large number of national and international committees, bodies and services in the geosciences. So he led u. a. the Commission for the International Coordination of Space Technologies for Geodesy and Geodynamics of the IAG (International Association of Geodesy) and was chairman of the governing body of the International GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) Service IGS and the governing body of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service IE RS .

Memberships and honors

Reigber was elected as a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 2002 and a member of the Academia Europaea in 2014 . In 1985 he received the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for scientific collaboration between Germany and France and in 1998 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn .

For his services in the geosciences and space travel Reigber received a number of national and international awards, including: 2002 the Vening Meinesz Medal of the European Geophysical Society (EGS), 2003 the Werner-von-Braun-Honor of the Dt. Ges. Für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DGLR) , 2010 the Grand Prix of the Academie de l`Air et de l`Èspace, 2018 the William Nordberg Medal of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) and 2019 the Levallois Medal of the IAG (International Association of geodesy) .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Reigber, Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German geodesist
DATE OF BIRTH	July 8, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wroclaw