2021

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Santiago Belda Palazón

Santiago Belda Palazón

ResearchID

ORCID

santiago.belda@ua.es

Affiliation: Universidad de Alicante

Fields or areas of research Geodesy, Earth Rotation, VLBI, remote sensing, machine learning, reference frames

Santiago Belda (Buñol, 1983) studied Geodesy and Cartography at Univ. Polit. of Valencia (2009) and he hold a MSc in Remote Sensing at University of Valencia (2011). He gained a Spanish PhD scholarship (FPI) in the department of Applied Mathematics at University of Alicante (UA), and read the dissertation in mid-2015 obtaining the Extraordinary Doctorate Award. During his PhD, he performed a research stay at the Advanced Geodesy group of the Technological University of Vienna (TU Vienna). After that, he worked at the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) with a Postdoctoral Fellowship of the Generalitat Valenciana (APOSTD) for nearly 2 years. In middle 2018, he got another postdoctoral position funded by one European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant) project in the Laboratory of Earth Observation (LEO) at the University of Valencia. From 2021, he is leading a research team and SEJIGENT project supported by the competitive Program for the support of talented researchers (GenT Plan / Generalitat Valenciana) at University of Alicante.

During his scientific career, he performed research based on subjects related to Geodetic/astrometric VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) and Remote Sensing for vegetation analysis and modeling. His main research interests focus on the development of new Earth rotation theories/models fully consistent with satellite observations by analyzing geodetic VLBI observations and products. This requires modeling many relevant geophysical processes (postglacial rebound, sea level, atmospheric transport, oceanic circulation, gravity field variations, luni-solar tides, tectonic movements) to provide a better understanding of the causes/consequences that produce variations in the Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP) and Terrestrial/Celestial reference frames (ITRF/ICRF) and their interaction with each sub-system. It requires the use of advanced mathematical procedures, and combination of observations obtained from different sources, apart from a strong geodetical, geophysical, and signal theory background.

The obtained experience has allowed him to be part of several European projects funded by ESA (European Space Agency) and be affiliated to several international working groups of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), International VLBI Service (IVS) and International Association of Geodesy (IAG). He is the initiator and coordinator of different scientific software packages, designed to process time-series of different types of satellite data using advanced Machine Learning Regression Algorithms and synergy of multiple sensors to detect relationships with the geophysical and biophysical processes. In addition, he is co-founder as Primary Technical Contact of the UA VLBI Analysis Center (UAVAC), one out of 20 in the world attached to the IVS and the first in Spain

People associated with the project as predoctoral research staff: 1

People associated with the project as technical support staff: 1