Ivan I. Mueller

The 2000 Vening Meinesz Medal is awarded to Ivan I. Mueller for his original and stimulating contributions to geodesy and his work in developing and organizing geodetic services.

Prof. Ivan I. Mueller has promoted international cooperation throughout his professional career. He was instrumental in the development and organization of geodetic services that we often take for granted, such as the International Earth Rotation Service 0ERS) and the International GPS Service (IGS). He has provided guidance to the geodetic community through his service with the International Association of Geodesy. Prof. Mueller well deserves the honor of the Vening-Meisenez Award.

Ivan I. Mueller was born in Budapest, Hungary. Emigrating to the U.S. in 1957, his teaching and research career at the Department of Geodetic Science, The Ohio State University focused on geodetic astronomy and satellite geodesy during which he was principal advisor to 25 Ph.D. graduate students. He is the founder of the Center for Mapping at The Ohio State University and the NASA Center for the Commercial Development of Space on Real-Time Satellite Mapping, both established in 1986.

In addition to his teaching and research at OSU, he has been a member of various national and international committees and study groups, among these the Committee Advisory of the National Academy of Sciences to the (former) U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Space Science and Applications Steering Committee of NASA. He has been a consultant to the United Nations Development Program to the Survey of India, and to other private and government organizations. He held a four-year term as Chairman of the Committee on Geodesy of the National Academy of Sciences and was a member of the Geophysical Research Board of the National Research Council.

He was President (1987 – 91) of the International Association of Geodesy/IUGG (International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics). He was Chairman of the IAU/IUGG (International Astronomical Union) Joint Working Group on the Establishment and Maintenance of a Conventional Terrestrial Reference System (COTES); and Vice-Chairman of the IAU/IUGG Joint Working Group on the Determination of the Rotation of the Earth (Project MERIT).

As a consequence of these responsibilities spanning a ten-year period, the International Earth Rotation Service was established on 1 January 1988. Other IAG activities in which he was the leader are Project ADOS (African Doppler Survey), 1981 – 86, and the International GPS Service for Geodynamics (IGS) formally established on 1 January 1994.

He was President (1997-1999) of the International Union of Surveys and Mapping (IUSM), a union of four international scientific associations involved in various aspects of the mapping sciences.

He is a former associate editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research and served 12 years from 1975 as Editor of Bulletin Geodesique journal of the IAG. He was chairman of the International Editorial Board of the quarterly manuscripta geodaetica in its early years of publication. He has authored over 220 scientific papers and presentations and five books. His Introduction to Satellite Geodesy (1964) was the first book published on the subject matter and has been translated into Russian, Chinese and Portuguese. His Spherical and Practical Astronomy As Applied to Geodesy (1969) has become a standard text in the English-speaking world. His fifth book, Earth Rotation: Theory and Observation (1987), co-authored with Helmut Moritz, has been translated into Russian.
In 1976 he received the Senior Scientist Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bonn (Humbo1dt Prize) with follow-up research awards in 1983 and 1984; in 1978 he was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. In 1980 he was elected a Foreign Member of the German Geodetic Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich and in 1983 he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Austrian National Academy of Sciences. He is a recipient of the 1984 Distinguished Scholar Award at The Ohio State University. In 1988 he was elected an Honorary Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and in 1993 he received the honorary D.Sc. degree from his alma mater, the Technical University of Budapest.

Currently he is a member of the IGS Governing Board and consultant to the World Bank on Curriculum Development, Ministry of Education, Hungary.
Mueller is a member of the International Astronomical Union and the American Geophysical Union, of which he is a former president of the Geodesy Section.