Our Global Leadership Continues!
Congratulations to UNSW Emeritus Professor Chris Rizos who is the new President of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG).
Published on the 24 January 2024
IUGG is the global organisation dedicated to advancing, promoting, and communicating knowledge of the Earth system, its space environment, and the dynamic processes causing change. Founded in 1919, the Union is comprised of eight semi-autonomous International Associations, each responsible for a specific range of topics or themes. These include Cryospheric Sciences (IACS), Geodesy (IAG), Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA), Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS), Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO), Seismology and Physics of the Earth’s Interior (IASPEI), and Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI).
It is a huge honour for UNSW Civil & Environmental Engineering and Australian research for Em Prof Rizos to be selected to lead the Union over the next four years. The most recent IUGG General Assembly, held in Berlin in July 2023 had over 5000 registrants, thousands of oral or poster presentations, and up to 26 parallel technical sessions!
As well as convening global assemblies and workshops, IUGG fosters research and international collaboration, facilitates the collection of a wide range of Earth System observations, encourages the provision of scientific to support geoscientific and societal applications, coordinates regional and global geoscience activities, liaises with other scientific bodies, plays an advocacy role, contributes to education and outreach, and works to expand geoscience capabilities and participation worldwide. Amongst many other activities, IUGG scientists have contributed to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
Em Prof Chris Rizos (right) at award ceremony, IUGG Berlin 2023
Em Prof Rizos, a past Head of the UNSW School of Surveying and Geospatial Engineering, is a Fellow and the Past President of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG), a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Navigation, and a Fellow of the U.S. Institute of Navigation.
Chris graduated with a Surveying degree from UNSW in 1975, and with a PhD in 1980 in the field of Satellite Geodesy, also from UNSW. Chris has been researching the technology and applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and other positioning technologies for over three decades, and is a named author of over 650 journal and conference papers. His expertise is geodesy, surveying technologies, and navigation systems and concepts. As a consequence, Chris has broad positioning expertise – ranging from ultra-accurate techniques for geoscience applications to dekametre-level localisation – spanning the extremes from Geodesy to Navigation.
Congratulations to Chris!
Related News: The International Global Navigation Satellite Systems Association (IGNSS) is celebrating 50 years of GNSS at a Conference taking place at UNSW Sydney on 7 - 9 February 2024.