My name is Julien Chimot (1985). I am a PhD satellite Earth observation scientist with 14 years of experiences in atmospheric composition (aerosol, trace gas, clouds, water vapour) measurements for air quality, climate and surface purposes. My scientific skills cover advanced knowledge of passive measurements in the UV-visible & infrared (multi & hyper-spectral, mono & multi-viewing), use of radiative transfer modelling, information content analyses, various atmospheric retrieval techniques, (Optimal Estimation Methodology, Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy and machine learning), budget error assessment, validation, and big data processing.
Since 2018, I work as expert scientist & developer of operational satellite data processing algorithms for the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT, located in Germany). My core mission is the Copernicus Level 2 (L2) Near Real Time (NRT) aerosol & fire processing from Sentinel-3, entrusted by the European Commission and the Copernicus atmospheric and climate services. This work is achieved in collaboration with EUMETSAT, worldwide scientists and engineers, the Copernicus Atmosphere and Marine Environment Monitoring Services (CAMS), and the European Space Agency (ESA). I also contribute to other L2 developments or missions: e.g. H2O, cloud top pressure, synergistic atmospheric obstruction mask (clear-sky, cloud, aerosol) & atmospheric correction for ocean colour from S3; and aerosols, fires from Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) & European Polar Satellite Second Generation (EPS-SG) 3MI.
After receiving my Master degree specialized in Atmosphere, Ocean, and Environment monitoring in 2008 from the Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, I started my career as R&D engineer and project manager for the French NOVELTIS company, I was involved in projects fund by French and European space agencies (e.g. CNES, ESA, EUMETSAT) related to atmospheric infrared satellite missions (MetOp IASI, MTG IRS, GOSAT Tanso, Sentinel-5-UVNS, MicroCarb and CarbonSat), with a focus on greenhouse gas (e.g. CO2, CH4) and temperature retrievals. I also covered altimeter, and ocean colour topics. From 2013 to 2018, I worked at the Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, and strongly collaborated with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). As research fellow, I developed a novel machine learning algorithm for determining the height of atmospheric aerosols from the Dutch-Finnish OMI sensor, on-board the NASA Aura platform, based on measurements in the visible spectral range. I also contributed to improve the aerosol correction in the operational OMI tropospheric NO2 (a key gas in air quality) retrieval chain. This research lead to 4 key peer-reviewed publications, as 1st author, in the Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT) journal, 2 additional peer-reviewed papers as co-author, and was rewarded by a PhD degree in September 2018.
In my career, I have (co-)authored 9 publications in international and peer-reviewed scientific journals, 3 European final project reports, 1 PhD research book, and several technical reports. I have given 21 oral and poster presentations at international conferences, international training, and final European project meetings. I also submitted project proposals to French & European space agencies, and the Dutch research funding agency. Through my multiple responsibilities in the context of Small and Medium Enterprise, academy / research institute and international space agency, I acquired a wide range of competences between Earth Observation research achievement, project management, oral communication, writing, collaboration with scientific partners, student teaching and supervision, autonomy and successful team work as well.
A detailed CV (November 2020) is also available here
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Homepage Julien Chimot: a journey in Earth observation satellite science 