Download Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Harald Schuh (*1956) became President of the

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Harald Schuh (*1956) became President of the International Association of Geodesy
(IAG) at the IUGG General Assembly in Prague, 2015, after four years as Vice-President (2011-15). He
is Past President of the IAU Commission 19 “Rotation of the Earth”, and was the Chair of the
International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS, 2007-2013). He has engaged in geodetic
VLBI research for more than 30 years, and has rich experience as well as deep understanding in this
field.
Since 2012, he is the Director of Department 1 “Geodesy and Remote Sensing” at the Helmholtz
Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and professor for “Satellite Geodesy”
at the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB).
In Germany, Harald Schuh has been active as referee, member of evaluation committees and
consultant of the German Ministry of Research and Technology and of the German Research
Foundation DFG.
He has been leading a number of large research projects. For instance, he was principal proposer and
project coordinator of fifteen national projects funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)
and the FWF (Austrian Science Fund), co-proposer of more than one dozen research projects funded
by DFG, FWF, and other organizations, and co-PI of the proposal for the GRASP space mission by
NASA/JPL. He was principal proposer and project leader of several bi-lateral projects funded by
DAAD, MPG, and ÖAD (Germany-China, Germany-Spain, Germany-Taiwan, Austria-China, AustriaHungary, Austria-Poland, Austria-Spain, and others) and of the project BALGEOS with several Balkan
countries.
At present, Harald Schuh supervises eight doctor theses (topics: VLBI, GNSS, combination of space
geodetic techniques, troposphere, ionosphere, Earth rotation, interactions in system Earth).
Apart from the mentioned scientific bodies and committees, Harald Schuh has been active as
member or consultant of various commissions, study groups and working groups in geodesy (IAG)
and astronomy (IAU). Among several duties within national and international advisory and review
boards, only a few shall be mentioned: Scientific Advisory Board of the German Research Group on
Satellite Geodesy (FGS), Scientific Advisory Board of the European Optical Fibre Project NEAT-FT
(since 2012), Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Deutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut
(DGFI, 2010), Expert Panel of the International Assessment of the Shanghai Astronomical
Observatory (SHAO, 2014).
Harald Schuh received several awards: the Descartes Prize of the European Union for the project
‚Non-rigid Earth nutation model – Pinpoint positioning in a wobbly world’ in 2003 and the Vening
Meinesz Medal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in 2011. In 2007 he was elected as Fellow
of the IAG, and the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy in Sofia, Bulgaria
awarded him an honorary doctorate (Dr. h.c.) in 2009.
Harald Schuh is author or co-author of more than 350 publications (70 peer-reviewed) with the main
subjects VLBI, GNSS, Earth rotation, geodynamics, reference frames, troposphere, ionosphere. He is
editor or co-editor of thirteen national and international publications (books, proceedings, or special
issues). For instance, he was co-editor of the Journal of Geodesy (2004-2007) and the ‘vgi’ (Journal of
the Austrian OVG, 2006-2012) and is presently co-editor of ZfV (Journal of the German DVW),
Advances in Astronomy and Space Physics (AASP, Ukraine), Journal of Geodesy and Geoinformation
(Turkey), Reports on Geodesy (Poland), Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica Hungarica (AGGH, Hungary),
or Geodesy and Geodynamics (GG, China). In 2013 the textbook ‘”Atmospheric Effects in Space
Geodesy” was published by Springer with Harald Schuh as one of the two editors.