Dr. Benjamin Koetz
Senior Application and Mission Scientist
Benjamin Koetz works as Senior Application and Mission Scientist in the Earth Observation Directorate of the European Space Agency. His tasks focus on the development of Earth Observation (EO) applications in close collaboration with relevant user communities, scientists and EO service providers. In particular he is responsible for the TIGER initiative dealing with EO for water resources management in Africa and for the recently launched EO AFRICA (EO African Framework for Research, Innovation, Communities and Applications) initiative. He is further involved in the GEO-Global Agricultural Monitoring Initiative (GEOGLAM) launched by the G20 Agricultural ministers.
As Mission Scientist of the Land Surface Temperature Monitoring (LSTM) mission he prepares one of the proposed Copernicus candidate missions aiming at improved agricultural management. Benjamin Koetz received his M.S. degree in Environmental Sciences with a major in Remote Sensing from the University of Trier, Germany. He also holds a Ph.D. with a specialization in Earth Observation from the University of Zürich, Switzerland. His scientific expertise focuses on the development of physically-based methodologies to derive geo-biophysical EO products with a total of 20 years experience in the field of satellite Earth Observation.