GFZ German research centre for geo sciences

Two new Heads of Sections at GFZ

01.10.2014: As of 1st October two new Heads of Sections and joint appointments set at GFZ.

01.10.2014: As of 1st October two new Heads of Sections and joint appointments set at GFZ.

Starting from 1st October Professor Liane Benning is Head of the newly established section "Interface Geochemistry" at GFZ Department 3. At the same time she takes up a joint appointment professorship position with FU Berlin.

Previously, Liane Benning held a professorship position in experimental biogeochemistry at Leeds University, UK. She is an outstanding scientist in the fields of low-temperature geochemistry, geobiology, and interface processes at mineral surfaces. She is Vice-President of the European Association of Geochemistry. Her scientific work is based on a multi-disciplinary approach to assess interface processes between mineral surfaces, aqueous solutions, and microbes at the earth's surface, using geochemical, physical, and microbiological approaches.

Starting the same day, Dr. Luis Guanter is new Head of Section 1.4 "Remote Sensing", succeeding Prof. Hermann Kaufmann who retires after a successful career. At the same time Luis Guanter takes up a joint appointment professorship position in Remote Sensing with University of Potsdam, Institute of Earth and Environmental Science. He will furthermore be the new Scientific Principle Investigator of the EnMAP project. 

In 2007 Dr. Luis Guanter received his PhD in the field of Environmental Physics at University of Valencia, Spain. He held postdoc positions at GFZ, in the field of remote sensing, and FU Berlin, Institute for Space Sciences. He spent one year as EC Marie Curie Fellow at Oxford University, UK. Since 2012 he was leading a DFG Emmy Noether junior research group at FU Berlin.
His main research interest is the monitoring of land and atmospheric processes by imaging spectroscopy, focussing on the terrestrial carbon cycle, and the development of multi- and hyperspectral remote sensing in the frame of future earth observatory missions (e.g. EnMAP, Sentinel-2, and FLEX). Luis Ganter is member of advisory boards of various satellite missions.

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