Philippe Gaspar is the Scientific Coordinator of the CLS Satellite Oceanography Division. After receiving, in 1985, his Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from the University of Louvain (Belgium), Dr. Gaspar held various postdoctoral positions with the French National Center for Meteorological Research (CNRM, Toulouse, France), the Center for Meteorology and Physical Oceanography (MIT, Cambridge, USA) and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) working on upper ocean mixing, coupled ocean-atmosphere models and data assimilation in ocean models.

 

In 1990, Dr Gaspar joined CLS to develop and lead the CLS Satellite Oceanography Division. Satellite altimetry and the use of altimeter data to monitor ocean circulation then became his main topics of interest. In 2000, he got involved in a leatherback turtles’ tracking program, trying to understand how ocean currents impact their migration routes. Dr. Gaspar then progressively focused his research work on the synergistic use of satellite oceanography, satellite telemetry and numerical modeling to help understand how the oceanic variability influences the life history and population dynamics of marine animals. Nowadays, Dr. Gaspar and his colleagues of the CLS Marine Ecosystem Modeling Department develop spatially explicit population dynamics model, focusing on large pelagic fishes and sea turtles.

 

 In parallel, Dr. Gaspar has been active in the development of new algorithms for light-based underwater geolocation of marine animals. He also triggered, and participated to, the research work that recently led to the operational implementation of a new Argos location algorithm based on multiple-model Kalman filtering.

 

From 1991 to 1998, Dr. Gaspar was Assistant Professor then Professor of Satellite Oceanography at the “Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées” (ENSTA, Paris). In 2001, he received the Silver Medal of the French Air and Space Academy for his “outstanding contribution to the success of the TOPEX-POSEIDON satellite altimetry mission”.  He is the author, or co-author, of over 50 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals.