Ms. List, you head the DLR Institute for Satellite Geodesy and Inertial Sensing, or DLR-SI for short. This name might sound complicated for many people at first. Can you explain what your institute does?

Admittedly, the name is a tongue twister. The institute has two key areas: satellite geodesy and inertial sensors. The term geodesy refers to observing the Earth’s gravitational field, the force that pulls everything downwards – gravity. Gravity varies around the world. And it changes over time – there are seasonal fluctuations, tidal effects, and atmospheric effects. Researchers have measured this with geodesy for a long time, but mostly selectively and locally.

Thanks to the new satellite geodesy, as was used in the GRACE Follow On mission, we are able to make observations from space and gain a global picture. The observed gravity field and its changes provide information about mass fluctuations, which mostly occur underground and often involve moving water.

The inertial sensors are acceleration sensors. As the gravitational field is something in which everything “falls down” or gets accelerated, measuring acceleration is necessary in order to make a statement about a gravitational field. Future satellite missions can benefit from the additional knowledge gained by the use of highly accurate inertial sensors that improve the spatial and temporal resolution of observations. Additionally, inertial sensors are interesting for navigation.

Our overall goal is to use the new technologies to build more accurate and superior sensors, which can be combined with other, classic sensors or even replace them. This new inertial sensor technology could one day help us with underwater navigation, which is particularly difficult as there is no GPS signal.

Can you give us a specific example of how satellite geodesy and inertial sensors are currently helping us?

One example is the groundwater fluctuations that we observe. This has significant implications for other areas, particularly agriculture and water management. Climate change with its consequences plays a key role here. Droughts, floods, the melting of polar ice caps – all of this, and especially alterations that are not visible on the surface of the Earth, can be measured via changes in the gravitational field. With satellite geodesy, we can provide fundamental data for decision-makers: Where do we need to drill deeper wells, where should we promote alternative economic sectors? The GRACE Follow On Mission, for example, provides very informative data about the Lüneburg Heath region.

What did your path to the top of the institute look like? It is still not very common for a woman to head a scientific research institute.

I did my doctorate in theoretical physics at the University of Oldenburg. I was head of a working group at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at our university, in the field of satellite modeling together with Benny Rievers. Later, I was scientific director of a collaborative research center at the University of Hanover, where I gained a lot of experience with applications and project management.

In 2014, I returned to ZARM as head of the “Micro Satellite Systems and Modeling Methods” research group. The provisions of the German Act on Fixed-Term Employment Contracts in Academia then required me to apply for work outside of academia in 2019. My path then led me to the then very young DLR Institute for Satellite Geodesy and Inertial Sensing, where I established the “Relativistic Modeling” department in Bremen, both technically and administratively. After taking over the provisional management of the Institute in Hanover and Bremen, I was then appointed Institute Director in September 2023. Since January 2022, I have also been teaching space science and satellite modeling as a cooperation professor in the Faculty of Physics/Electrical Engineering at the University of Bremen.

What stands out at DLR-SI in Hanover and Bremen is not only that you are the head, but that your entire leadership team consists of women …

That’s right. My co-director Lisa Wörner has a lot of technological and laboratory expertise, whereas I am more theoretically minded. Jana Hoffmann manages the business side of things as administrative director. We are very diverse.

However, the fact that around half of the staff in a department with 13 employees at a natural sciences institute are women is remarkable and not – yet – commonplace. How do you explain this?

I don’t know (laughs). Personally, I think it is a little bit the effect of me as a role model. Perhaps this is precisely because the “female scientist” label is not featured prominently here, but it is a natural matter of fact. That’s just the way it is. We have never had the problem that too few women applied, and we recruited excellently qualified female scientists.

The fact that the so-called STEM disciplines (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are not the most popular with students, and with women in particular, is well known. Has anything changed for the better here in recent years?

Not as far as I can tell. When I look at the student demographics, nothing has changed in recent years. The same old question remains: How do you get more women to pursue degrees in the natural sciences?

What helped you in your decision to make a career in physics and aerospace engineering?

My interest in physics, space, and space travel began at a relatively early age and was related to my father, who was a physics and math teacher. He also looked at the stars with me or watched a lunar eclipse with me using binoculars. I had the advantage that he could explain things to me at home that I had not understood in physics at school. This encouraged my interest and I began to like the puzzling and logical thinking that goes hand in hand with a subject like physics. The ultimately successful promotion of my early interest is an indication of where we need to start in order to get young people – not just girls – interested in STEM subjects.

How do you support young female scientists yourself and how do you pass on your experience as a cooperation professor in the Faculty of Physics/Electrical Engineering?

We are a non-university institute, but students can do their internships here as well. I currently have three inquiries from women who would like to do this here at DLR-SI. Next year in January, a school intern will be coming as well. Students can also write their bachelor’s and master’s theses with us. But I think the most important thing is to convey my enthusiasm for my field of research. If I can tangibly convey to other people – including the next generation – how great this is, then that is probably the best way to promote the sciences – regardless of gender.