Rate My Professor Torsten Mayer-Gürr

Torsten Mayer-Gürr is Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. at the Institute of Geodesy, Graz University of Technology, where he serves as head of the Working Group on Theoretical Geodesy and Satellite Geodesy. He earned his Dr.-Ing. degree from the University of Bonn in 2008, with a dissertation focused on gravity field determination using GRACE satellite data. Prior to his position at Graz University of Technology, he was affiliated with the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation at the University of Bonn. In 2007, he received the Commerzbank Dissertation Prize from the University of Bonn for his outstanding doctoral work. He leads the Class of Geodesy within the Doctoral School Geosciences at Graz University of Technology.

Mayer-Gürr's research centers on analytical and numerical methods in theoretical geodesy and satellite geodesy. His group processes globally distributed satellite data from missions such as GRACE, GRACE-FO, GOCE, and Swarm to determine Earth's gravity field and produce high-resolution regional geoid models by combining satellite data with terrestrial observations. Key efforts include investigating temporal gravity variations due to mass transport from ocean tides, sea level rise, groundwater fluctuations, and ice mass changes, linking these to applications in oceanography, hydrology, glaciology, and geophysics. He provides precise orbit products for low Earth orbit satellites. Mayer-Gürr is the lead developer of GROOPS, a software toolkit for gravity field recovery and GNSS processing, detailed in Mayer-Gürr et al. (2021, Computers & Geosciences). Notable publications include Kvas et al. (2019, 'ITSG-Grace2018: Overview and Evaluation of a New GRACE Gravity-Field Product,' Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth), Kvas et al. (2021, 'GOCO06s – a satellite-only global gravity field model,' Earth System Science Data), and contributions to daily GRACE gravity snapshots (Kurtenbach et al., 2009, Geophysical Research Letters). His gravity field models and software are widely used for monitoring hydrological extremes, drought conditions in Europe, and climate-related mass changes. He contributes to international efforts in satellite geodesy, including benchmark data and orbit products publicly available from the Institute of Geodesy.