Rate My Professor Gabriel Rau

Dr. Gabriel Rau is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Science, College of Engineering, Science and Environment, at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of New South Wales (2012), a Diplom-Ingenieur in Umweltschutztechnik from the University of Stuttgart (2008), and a Habilitation in Applied Geosciences from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (2023). Rau's career trajectory includes roles at UNSW Sydney from 2008 to 2018, starting as Research Associate funded by the National Water Commission, progressing to Postdoctoral Research Associate, Associate Lecturer, and Lecturer in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He then served as Assistant Professor at KIT's Institute of Applied Geosciences from 2018 to 2022. Joining the University of Newcastle in May 2022 as Lecturer in the School of Environmental and Life Sciences until December 2024, he advanced to Senior Lecturer from January 2025. His research expertise centers on hydrogeology, encompassing groundwater hydrology (60% of fields of research), water resources engineering (30%), and geospatial information systems (10%). Rau develops and applies innovative field and laboratory experiments, leveraging Python-powered data science, to quantify subsurface processes such as water flows across surface-subsoil boundaries, heat transport in porous media, and responses to underground resource extraction and climate change.