Short Biography
Christoph joined Lowell Observatory as the Director of Science in early 2022. His research expertise includes (exo-)planets, solar and stellar magnetic fields, aerosols and trace gases in planetary atmospheres as well as innovative optical instruments for astronomy, remote sensing and biomedical imaging. He has authored or co-authored more than 350 publications and received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel award for outstanding research in astrophysics. He is a world-leading expert in high-accuracy polarimetry for astronomy and environmental sensing with the world’s largest telescopes and the latest space instruments for climate science.
Christoph has a long track record at observatories and universities. He worked for a decade at the National Solar Observatory in Tucson and was in charge of the iconic McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope on Kitt Peak. He then joined Utrecht University in The Netherlands and became the director of its Astronomical Institute. He served on oversight and visiting committees and also chaired the board of the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes on the Canary Islands. After 10 years as a professor at Leiden University, he joined Lowell Observatory where he works on providing the ideal environment for researchers to do great science.
Interests
- Exoplanetary systems and solar system
- Innovative optical instrumentation
- Solar physics
- Remote sensing of aerosol and trace gases
- Interdisciplinary research
Education
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Dr. sc. nat. ETH (PhD in Physics), 1992
ETH Zürich, Switzerland
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Dipl. Phys. ETH (MSc in Physics), 1988
ETH Zürich, Switzerland
