Siegfried J. Bauer

The 2000 David Bates Medal is awarded to Siegfried J. Bauer in recognition of his eminent contributions in the fields of aeronomy and planetary atmospheres.

Prof. Siegfried Bauer received his PhD in geophysics, meteorology and physics in 1953 from the Univ. of Graz in Austria. In 1955 he moved to the United States to work as a Research Scientist at the US Army Signal R & D Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where he was engaged in terrestrial ionospheric research; this is when he determined the extent of the terrestrial ionosphere through the application of radio signals reflected from the moon.

In 1961 he joined NASA at the newly established Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, as Senior Research Scientist for upper atmosphere research by rockets and satellites, and later held a number of high-ranking positions at Goddard, finally as Associate Director of Space Sciences. In 1981 he returned to the University of Graz on the Alfed Wegener Chair of Meteorology and Geophysics and became Department Head and Director of the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences until 1998, now being Professor Emeritus there.

During his time at the GSFC Siegfried Bauer had a number of first-rate involvements in space missions, e. g. in the first international satellite missions in the field of aeronomy, the Ariel 3 mission with the UK and the Aeros 1 & 2 missions with Germany. In the seventies he was engaged in the first US Venus mission, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and Entry Probes. After returning to Graz he concentrated his research on the aeronomy of Venus, Mars, and the Saturnian moon Titan.

Siegfried Bauer is author of more than 130 scientific papers in geophysics and space sciences primarily in aeronomy, and, among other book contributions, has written the classical monograph “Physics of Planetary Ionespheres“.

He is a member of a number of distinguished societies such as the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the International Academy of Astronautics of the Academia Europea and has received a number of prizes among which is the Osterreichisches Ehrenzeichen fur Wissenschaft und Kunst, the highest Austrian Award in arts K sciences limited to 36 persons.

The EGS and the section PS are proud to recognize the achievements of the distinguished scientist Siegfried Bauer by awarding the David Bates Medal to him.