Jérôme Benveniste

Jérôme Benveniste obtained his PhD in space oceanography from the University of Toulouse, France, in 1989. After completing postdoctoral research on space data assimilation in ocean models at MIT, Boston, USA, he was recruited by the European Space Agency.

He has worked at the ESA Earth Observation Data Center near Rome, Italy, since 1992, where he was responsible for the exploitation of ERS-1, ERS-2, ENVISAT, CryoSat, Sentinel-3, and Sentinel-6 radar altimetry data for Earth science research activities in oceanography, hydrology, and the cryosphere. He interacted with principal investigators of ESA projects, organized scientific symposia, which included training sessions, and regularly launched research and development projects, including the exploitation of GOCE and GRACE data. He was appointed senior advisor at ESA in 2008. He is co-editor of a Springer book on radar altimetry of coastal areas, published in 2011, co-editor of five others, and author or co-author of more than 140 peer-reviewed publications. He is editor of a peer-reviewed scientific journal and guest editor of 14 special issues of journals. He initiated and oversaw the ESA Climate Change Initiative's sea level project (2009-) and its coastal-focused follow-up, as well as other projects on sea level budget closure, runoff, river discharge, ocean heat content, upwelling systems at eastern boundaries, coastal oceanography, and coastal hazards.

He retired from ESA in 2024 and continues numerous academic activities in oceanography and hydrology as an advisor to several scientific committees. He joined the COSPAR governance in 2008 as elected chair of Subcommission A2 “Ocean Dynamics, Productivity, and Cryosphere” of the Scientific Commission “Space Studies of the Earth Surface, Meteorology, and Climate.” He is now chair of this Scientific Committee A. He received the AGU's 2025 Ivan I. Mueller Award for outstanding service and leadership.

Photo credit: @Lake Issyk-Khul