Function and Responsibilities:
Senior Scientist at GFZ, Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, officially retired, guest=scientist in section 1.1
Research Interests:
- Cluster's Electron Drift Instrument (EDI) data analysis and interpretation
- Electric fields in magnetosphere and ionosphere
- High-latitude thermospheric wind circulation and its relation to solar wind drivers
- Auroral Electrodynamics, using radar as, e.g., EISCAT and satellite data
- Pulsations and Waves in the magnetosphere
- Numerical modelling of thermosphere-ionosphere-plasmasphere-magnetosphere coupling processes
- Geospheric Storms and Space Weather ascpects
- Data interpretation of the Swarm satellite project
Career:
1975 – 1983 Research Scientist, Central Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics (ZISTP) of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Potsdam
1977 Visiting Scientist, Sibirian Institute for Earth Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Science (IZMIRAN) in Irkutsk
1983 – 1991 Research Scientist, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam (AIP)
1992 – 1996 Research Scientist, Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, branch office Berlin (MPE-A)
1997 – 1999 Research Scientist, GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) Potsdam, preparing satellite project CHAMP
2000 – 2005 Research Scientist, Max-Planck-Institut for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching near Munich, working in the Cluster Electron Drift Instrument (EDI) team
since 2005 Research Scientist, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam
since 2016 Additionally part-time Research Scientist at Max-Planck-Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), Göttingen
May 2018 officially retired, (virtual) guest scientist at GFZ
Education:
1971 Abitur at the Thomasschule Leipzig
1975 Diploma in Theoretical Physics, Technical University of Dresden
1987 Dr. rer. nat. in Magnetospheric Physics, Academy of Sciences of the GDR, Berlin
Projects:
2010 - 2015 DFG-Project on "High-latitude coupling processes between thermospheric circulation and solar wind driven magnetospheric currents and plasma convection" (funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG)
2014 - 2016 ISSI (Bern) Project team leader on "Magnetiosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere Coupling: Differences and Similarities between the two Hemispheres (North-South Asymmetries)"
2022 - 2025 ISSI (Bern) Project on the topic "Understanding Interhemispheric Asymmetry in MIT Coupling" led by Hyomin Kim
Research Boards and Committees:
1988 - 1991 Secretary of the National U.R.S.I. (International Union of Radio Science) Committee of the GDR
1993 - 2018 National Representative of Commission G (Ionospheric Physics) of the German National U.R.S.I. (International Union of Radio Science) Committee
2001 - 2005 German member of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) of the EISCAT (European Incoherent Scatter) Scientific Association
since 2002 Co-Editor of the journal Advances in Radio Science (ARS)
since 2003 CoI of the Electron Drift Instrument (EDI) of the Cluster satellites