ECS Representatives
of IAG components
Anna Kłos
ECS Representative of Commission 1
Dr Anna Kłos is an associate professor at the Military University of Technology, Poland. Her main research area is related to time series analysis in terms of earth’s deformation, loading effects, tropospheric delay and their applications. She is focused on the geodetic deliverables, which may be helpful for climate change studies.
Athina Peidou
ECS Representative of Commission 2
Dr Athina Peidou is a Geodesist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She specializes in gravity field determination, navigation and tracking, and orbital mechanics. Her research interests are broadly centered on tracking the Earth’s mass in motion using geodetic techniques. Athina works with the GRACE and GRACE-FO missions, which measure the temporal variations of the Earth’s gravity field, and with observations from the four-core space geodetic techniques (GNSS, SLR, VLBI, and DORIS) to address fundamental questions regarding the Earth system. She serves as the project staff scientist for the GRACE-FO satellite mission and performs tasks for JPL’s GNSS team.
Anna Riddell
ECS Representative of Commission 3
Dr Anna Riddell is a University of Tasmania alumni, graduating with a Bachelor of Surveying and Spatial Sciences (Honours) in 2011, and started at Geoscience Australia in 2012 as a Graduate Geodesist where she enjoyed understanding the movements of the Earth as it changes size and shape in response to the distribution of mass within and upon its surface. Dr Riddell completed her PhD in Geomatic Engineering (Geodesy) in 2021, looking at the crustal deformation of the Australian continent. Dr Riddell is the Director for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Analysis within the Positioning Australia Branch at Geoscience Australia, where her team are responsible for the provision of precise positioning products and services, and is also the current chair for the Australian Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mappings Geodesy Working Group, as well as the vice-President of the International Association of Geodesy’s Global Geodetic Observing System.
Artur Fischer
Artur Fischer ECS Representative of Commission 4
Artur Fischer is currently pursuing a PhD in the Department of Geodesy at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn. My research focuses on theoretical aspects of quality control procedures and GNSS ambiguity resolution.
Julia Koch
ECS Representative of GGOS
Julia Koch completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in geodesy at TU Munich and is currently a PhD student at ETH Zurich. Her research focuses on regional geoid modeling, with an emphasis on high precision and short-distance variability. She supports the IUGG Early-Career Scientists Network (ECSNet) project. Fluent in English, German, and Japanese, Julia enjoys reading, traveling, and collaging in her free time.
Michela Ravanelli
ECS Representative of ICCT
Michela Ravanelli holds a BSc and MSc in Environmental Engineering and a PhD in Geodesy from Sapienza University of Rome. Currently as an AXA Research Fund-IOC UNESCO fellow, she focuses on the joint use of real-time GNSS ground and ionospheric monitoring to improve tsunami early warning systems. Her research encompasses GNSS geodesy, ionospheric sounding, remote sensing, and the use of machine learning, with a focus on natural hazard monitoring and detection. Michela is chair of the Joint Study Group T.36 (High-resolution Probing of the Troposphere and Ionosphere) under the ICCT-IAG.
Pierre Sakic
ECS Representative of ICCM
Pierre Sakic is specialized in space and marine geodesy. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2016 on seafloor precise positioning methods applied to tectonics deformation monitoring. Between 2017 and 2021, he was a research scientist at GFZ, Potsdam, Germany where he was in charge of the operational GNSS processing within the framework of the Galileo Geodetic Service Provider. He is now a research engineer at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, where he manages the geodetic data handling and processing of the Volcanological and Seismological Observatories.
Franck Ghomsi
ECS Representative of ICCC
Franck Ghomsi, PhD, holds doctorates from the University of Cape Town- South Africa (Oceanography) and the University of Yaoundé I – Cameroon (Geophysics and Geodynamics). He is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Earth Observation Science, University of Manitoba, Canada, and a Research Officer at the National Institute of Cartography, Cameroon. His research focuses on sea-level variability, long-term trends, and their socio-economic and environmental impacts on vulnerable coastal regions. He also has expertise in geodynamics and geophysics, with significant research on African crustal geodynamics, including active volcanic lines and rift systems.
Öykü Koç
ECS Representative of QuGe
Öykü Koç is PhD candidate at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and I work on mitigating temporal aliasing by a stochastic Level-1B data processing method, particularly in the context of future gravity missions with novel sensors such as quantum accelerometers and laser interferometry. In November 2023, I joined the IAG project – QuGe (Novel Sensors and Quantum Technology for Geodesy) as the ECS representative. I hope to create more opportunities for ECSs in this field and create a better link within the community, as well as to improve public outreach in geodesy.
Rebekka Steffen
spokesperson of the ECS representatives in the Executive Committee
Dr Rebekka Steffen is a researcher in geodesy at Lantmäteriet (The Swedish Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authority). She is working on glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) modelling with a focus on stress field changes and model development, and the analysis of static gravity fields in terms of crustal and lithospheric structures of the Earth and Moon. She is also involved in the development of a European velocity model as part of EUREF (Regional Reference Frame IAG Sub-Commission for Europe). She received her PhD in 2013 from the University of Calgary.
