Sz. Rozsa | 2023-07-14

IAG Opening Ceremony - Awards and Prizes

IAG held its opening ceremony at the 28th IUGG General Assembly and announced the winners of the Levallois Medal, the Guy Bomford Prize, the Young Authors' Award and the Best Reviewer Award. Now with Laudations!

The Levallois Medal is a recognition of the distinguished service to the Association and/or to the science of geodesy in general. In 2023 two distinguished colleagues received the 

Levallois Medal


Hermann Drewes

for his invaluable impact for the development of the SIRGAS as well as for his more than 25-year-long duties within the IAG as Section Chair, Commission Chair and Secretary General (2007-2019). The Laudation written by Harald Schuch is available here.

Georges Balmino

for his outstanding works on the modelling of the gravity fields of Earth, Moon and other planets as well as his key role in the planning phase of the dedicated Earth's gravity field satellite mission GOCE. The Laudation written by Gerhard Beutler is available here.



Levallois Medal Award Ceremony (from left to right: M. Poutanen, Z. Altamimi, H. Drewes, G. Balmino, G. Beutler, H. Schuh)


Guy Bomford Prize

The Guy Bomford Prize is awarded by the International Association of Geodesy for outstanding contribution to Geodesy. 

The 2023 Guy Bomford Prize was awarded to

Amir Khodabandeh

For his research activities in the Geodetic Estimation Theory Applied to GNSS. According to the laudatio "his research contribution is unique and distinguished because of the mathematical rigour which he employs to develop methodical frameworks addressing research questions from basic principles".


Z. Altamimi, the President of I AG hands over the Guy Bomford Prize to A. Khodabandeh


Young Author's Awards

The Young Author's Awards aims at drawing attention to important contributions by young scientists in the Journal of Geodesy and fostering excellence in scientific writing. The YAA is awarded annually and handed over at the IAG Scientific or at the IUGG General Assemblies. The awardees are:

Radoslaw Zajdel (2021)

for his paper: Zajdel, R., Sośnica, K., Bury, G. et al. Sub-daily polar motion from GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo. J Geod95, 3 (2021) 

Matthias Willen (2022)

for his paper: Willen, M.O., Horwath, M., Groh, A. et al. Feasibility of a global inversion for spatially resolved glacial isostatic adjustment and ice sheet mass changes proven in simulation experiments. J Geod96, 75 (2022)  


Best Reviewer's Award

IAG has establilshed a new award in 2023 to officially recognize the important work of excellent reviewing for the Journal of Geodesy. 

The Best Reviewer Award (2021-2022) was given to

Jan Martin Brockmann

For reviewing extremely challenging manuscripts, including methodological papers with numerous development of ideas as well as for his careful and thorough and most importantly timely reviews.


Group photo of the IAG participants (click to enlarge)

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