New Head of Science appointed

EISCAT has decided to appoint the position as Head of Science with Dr. Thomas Ulich.

Dr. Thomas Ulich, born in Lower Saxony, Germany, studied Physics at University of Hannover. He came to Finland as an exchange student and studied Space Physics at University of Oulu and Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory (SGO). He wrote his dissertation on long-term changes of the ionosphere.

After Dr. Ulich received his PhD in 2000, he lead the projects at SGO to build a Meteor Radar facility. In 2009, he became the Head of the Aeronomy Unit (now Observation Unit), which he leads to this day. He served for a year and a half as Director of SGO until Dr. Esa Turunen returned from his post as Director of EISCAT at the end of 2012.

Dr. Ulich was a member of the Executive Board of the FP7 Preparatory Phase project “EISCAT_3D: A European three-dimensional imaging radar for atmospheric and geospace research”, during which he was heavily involved with the construction of SGO’s EISCAT_3D-prototype facility, the “Kilpisjärvi Atmospheric Imaging Receiver Array” (KAIRA).

Between September 2010 and September 2023, he represented Finland on the EISCAT Science Advisory Committee (SAC, 2007-2017 Science Oversight Committee). Since autumn 2019, Dr. Ulich is the responsible director of the Academy of Finland’s project “EISCAT_3D-Finland”, which is part of the Finnish contribution to EISCAT_3D and which predominantly has build the Karesuvanto site.

Dr. Ulich’s experience and knowledge will be of great value for the future work with EISCAT. We are happy to welcome Dr. Ulich to the EISCAT Team in October.