Congratulations, Julia!
On 12 December, Julia Koch successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis entitled "Geoid modeling for the Future Circular Collider at CERN".
Julia was the last doctoral student of the Mathematical and Physical Geodesy (MPG) group led by Prof. Markus Rothacher. Following Prof. Rothacher's retirement, she continued her research as a member of the Space Geodesy group.
During her doctorate, Julia developed and rigorously analyzed the uncertainties of a regional geoid model for the extended area of CERN, including the planned Future Circular Collider (FCC). Her Ph.D. work began with the preparation and execution of dedicated measurement campaigns along a validation profile, designed to assess existing and future geoid solutions. In this context, she was also responsible for the GNSS data processing.
In the first part of her dissertation, Julia computed an initial regional geoid model for the FCC region using the GROOPS software. She then conducted a comprehensive investigation of various error sources, including uncertainty related to the chosen digital elevation model, observation spacing, and mass density assumptions. These factors were shown to potentially introduce centimeter-level uncertainties in the geoid model, which are of particular relevance for meeting the extremely high precision requirements of up to 30 micrometer within a sliding window of 225 m for the pre-alignment of the instruments in the FCC tunnel.
Following the successful Ph.D. defense, the achievement was celebrated with a lunch together with the examination committee and an apéro with colleagues.
We warmly congratulate Julia on this accomplishment and wish her all the best for her future career.
