Christoph Clauser

Christoph Clauser (* March 18 1954 in Freiburg im Breisgau) is a German Geophysicist and university professor.
==Background and private life== 
Clauser is the second son of Ursula Clauser, née Früh (housewife), and (medical doctor); his older brother was the civilengineer Thomas Clauser (1951-1982). He has been married to mathematician and geographer Karin Becker (*1957) since 1986. They have two children, the materials scientist Johanna Charlotte Clauser (* 1989) and the chemist and technical product designer Simon Alexander Clauser (* 1993).
==Education and professional career==
Christoph Clauser attended elementary school in and the . From 1970 to 1971 he was an exchange student of AFS Intercultural Programs (formerly American Field Service) as a guest in the family of Enid and Robert Snyder and attended the graduating class of Hempfield High School in . He then continued his education at Kepler High School, graduating in 1973.
In 1973, he began studying geophysics at the TU Berlin (Technische Universität Berlin), graduating in 1981. His diploma thesis, supervised by Dr. Heiner Villinger, dealt with the Calculation of a temperature correction of Earth temperature data based on multi-year, non-periodic temperature fluctuations at the Earth's surface. From 1981 to 1987, he worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Applied Geophysics, Petrology and Economic Geology, headed by Jörn Behrens, where he worked on various research projects in the field of geothermics and developed the first version of the computer program SHEMAT.Clauser C (ed. ) (2003) Numerical Simulation of Reactive Flow in hot Aquifers using SHEMAT/Processing SHEMAT, Springer, Heidelberg-Berlin for the simulation of heat and mass transfer in porous media. In 1988, under the supervision of Ralph Hänel, he was awarded a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat) at the TU Berlin with a dissertation on Investigations on the separation of conductive and convective components in the heat transport in a sediment basin using the example of the Upper Rhine Rift ValleyClauser C (1988) Untersuchungen zur Trennung der konduktiven und konvektiven Anteile im Wärmetransport in einem Sedimentbecken am Beispiel des Oberrheintalgrabens, Diss, TU Berlin, Fortschritt Berichte VDI, Reihe 19, Nr. 28, VDI, Düsseldorf.
From 1987 to 1989, he worked as a fluid mechanics/hydrogeology expert in the repository safety group of the Institute for Deep Geological Repositories (Braunschweig) of the Gesellschaft für Strahlen und Umweltforschung München mbH (GSF) (now Helmholtz Zentrum München). From 1989 to 2000, he was a research scientist in the geophysics department of the Geological Survey of Lower Saxony (NLfB), which later became the Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics, and head of the sections groundwater hydraulics, and geothermics and groundwater hydraulics.
In 1995 Clauser obtained the second doctorate (Habilitation) at the University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn), supervised by Horst Neugebauer, with the topic Heat transport processes in the Earth's crust and their signatures in the temperature fieldClauser C (1999) Thermal Signatures of Heat Transfer Processes in the Earth's Crust, Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences, 85, ISBN 3-540-65604-9, Springer, Heidelberg-Berlin. and received the Venia Legendi for the subject Geophysics. In 2000, he was appointed Professor of Applied Geophysics at RWTH Aachen University (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen), a position he held until 2007, when he accepted the Chair of Applied Geophysics and Geothermal Energy at RWTH Aachen University as part of the E.ON Energy Research Center, a position he held until his retirement in 2018.
In 2006, together with his colleagues Alan Green (ETH Zurich), Kees Wapenaar and Evert Slob (TU Delft), he founded the trinational, English-language IDEA League master's program Applied Geophysics. In addition to numerous diploma, bachelor's and master's theses, he supervised 23 doctoral students during his time as a university lecturer and was the second supervisor for ten others.
As author and co-author, Clauser has published over 80 scientific articles on the topics of heat and mass transport in the Earth, paleoclimate, numerical simulation technology, rock and borehole physics as well as geothermal energy in peer-reviewed international scientific journals (see e. g. e.g. ′Christoph Clauser′ at Researchgate) as well as a monograph on the physics of the Earth in German Clauser C (2014, 2016, 2024) Einführung in die Geophysik - Globale physikalische Felder und Prozesse in der Erde, 1., 2. and 3. ed., Springer Spektrum, Heidelberg-Berlin. and English Clauser C (2014, 2016, 2024) Introduction to Geophysics - Global Physical Fields and Processes in the Earth, Springer Nature, Cham. as well as a German monograph on exploration seismology and gravimetry.Clauser C (2018) Grundlagen der angewandten Geophysik - Seismik, Gravimetrie, Springer Spektrum, Heidelberg-Berlin. Together with his Aachen colleagues Helge Stanjek and Stefan Peiffer, Clauser obtained a German and a European patent for a method and arrangement for the storage and permanent fixation of CO2 dissolved in water in geological formations.
==Economic activity== 
In 2002 Karin and Christoph Clauser founded and operated the Geophysica Beratungsgesellschaft mbH in Aachen, a consultancy with focus on geothermal energy and the interpretation of geophysical borehole measurements, which they operated until mid-2024.
==Memberships and honors== 
In 2011, Clauser was elected to the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. There he headed a working group on geothermal energy as part of the joint project Energy Systems of the Future (ESYS) of the Leopoldina, acatech German Academy of Science and Engineering and Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. In addition, he was part of a group of experts preparing a discussion paper on issues relating to the search for sites and dep disposal of highly radioactive materials in Germany.
Clauser served the International Heat Flow Commission (IHFC) of the IASPEI (International Association of Seismology and Physics and the Earth's Interior), from 1987 until 2015 in various capacities as Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Deputy Chairman, and Chairman . He was a member of the Forschungskollegium Physik des Erdkörpers (FKPE) from 2000 to 2018 and was its Chairman (2003 - 2005) and Vice-Chairman (2001-2003). Until 2024, he was a member of the AGU (American Geophysical Union) and SEG (Society of Exploration Geophysicists). He is a member of the DGG (Deutsche Geophysikalische Gesellschaft) and VAG (Vereinigung Aachener Geowissenschaftler).
Category:1954 births
Category:People from Freiburg im Breisgau
Category:German geophysicists
Category:German people
Category:Professors