Gerhard Held

GERHARD HELD completed his Doctorate in Meteorology at the University of Vienna in 1968. He retired with the rank of Pesquisador II at the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (São Paulo State University), affiliated to the Instituto de Pesquisas Meteorológicas (Meteorological Research Institute) in Bauru. In 1968, he completed his compulsory military service as meteorologist in the Austrian Air Forces. From 1969 until September 1970 he was employed by the ?Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik?, responsible for the solar radiation network in Austria. In September 1970, he moved to South Africa, contracted by the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) where he initially was involved in Radar Meteorology, studying severe thunderstorms and performed Atmospheric Boundary Layer research, later also including Atmospheric Chemistry. In May 1992, he joined the ?Technology Research & Investigations? group of the South African Electricity Company, Eskom, where he was responsible for Boundary Layer and Atmospheric Chemistry Research Projects, including meteorological monitoring for siting future Nuclear Power Plants. Published 64 articles in specialized Journals and 220 papers in Conference Proceedings. Wrote 5 chapters in books and published 1 book. Received 5 awards and/or homages. During his activities in Brazil, he coordinated 6 research projects, but had 15 research projects in South Africa. He is involved in areas of Geosciences, with emphasis in Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere. In the course of his professional activities he interacted with more than 450 collaborators in co-authorships of scientific publications. In his Currículo Lattes appear most frequently the following keywords in the scientific and technical production: Radar Observations, Severe storms, Air pollution, Doppler radar, TITAN Software, Lightning, Lidar, Aerosols, Nowcasting, Deep Convection, PBL, Sodar, TroCCiBras Project, HIBISCUS Project, TRO-Pico Project. Major Homages: A vote of applause (?Voto de Aplauso?; certificate No.0273/04) was bestowed by the City Council (?Camara Municipal?) of Bauru in 2004 for IPMet?s successful cooperation with the International HIBISCUS Project. In 2012, the Golden Needle was awarded by the Governor of Lower Austria for activities as ?Auslands-Niederösterreicher?. In 2021 he received Honorary Membership of the South African Society for Atmospheric Sciences (SASAS) and in November 2022 was awarded the SASAS Medal by the South African Society for Atmospheric Sciences for a fruitful and long career in Atmospheric Sciences. (Source: Lattes Curriculum)