Thomas Esch

Dr. Thomas Esch holds the title of Adjunct Professor (Honorarprofessor) at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences (HFT Stuttgart), appointed in January 2023. He teaches radar remote sensing in the English-language Master's program 'Photogrammetry and Geoinformatics,' focusing on optical satellite imagery and radar data analysis. His lectures, such as 'Earth Observation with Synthetic Aperture Radar,' are highly praised by international students.

Esch leads the 'Smart Cities and Urban Development' research group at the German Aerospace Center (DLR)'s Earth Observation Center (EOC) in Oberpfaffenhofen since 2008. His work emphasizes sustainable urban planning through Earth observation techniques, including global monitoring of built environments, machine learning for Big Earth Data analysis, and high-performance computing.

He has authored over 40 journal articles, 200 conference papers, and contributed to numerous international projects, notably the ESA's Copernicus program. His academic background includes a PhD from Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg (dissertation: 'Use of high-resolution radar data for urban structure analysis') and studies in Applied Physical Geography at the University of Trier and Geosciences at Utrecht University.