Information
Membership Number: FCA3123
Membership Type: Fellowship
Division: Natural Sciences
Corresponding Email: *******mail-zadeh@kit.edu
Homepage(s): https://comgeodyn.org/
https://petrophysics.agw.kit.edu/english/496_86.php
Present and Previous Positions
Research Professor of Computational Geodynamics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany
Alik Ismail-Zadeh graduated with a BSc degree in Mathematics from the Baku State University in 1982, MSc degree in Mathematical Physics from the Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1983, and a PhD degree in Geophysics from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1990. He held a post-doctoral position at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences during 1990, the Russian Academy of Sciences during 1991-1994; at University of Trieste, Italy, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and University of Mainz, Germany, during 1995-1996; at Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm and Uppsala University, Sweden, during 1996-2000; and was Visiting Scholar of the Royal Society at the University of Cambridge, UK, during 2000.
From 1998 to 2022 ,he was Chief Scientist of the Russian Academy of Sciences t the International Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics. He joined the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 2001 as a Senior Researcher and was appointed Research Professor of Computational Geodynamics in 2024. He was invited research professor/lecturer at Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France; the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy; University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; University of Tokyo, Japan; University of California at Los Angeles, USA; La Sapienza University of Roma, Italy; Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; and King Saud University, Saudi Arabia.
Alik Ismail-Zadeh served twelve years, from 2007, as the Secretary General of the International Union of Geophysics and Geodesy (IUGG), a body comprising eight international associations dealing with different disciplines in Earth and its environment in space and several interdisciplinary bodies, including climate and environment, risk and sustainability, and mathematical geophysics. He served for three years, from 2018, as the Secretary the International Science Council (ISC), a body comprising more than 250 national, regional and international scientific organizations from around. He currently chairs the IUGG Union Commission on Mathematical Geophysics (CMG), and Scientific Committee of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) Programme, co-sponsored by ISC and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Fields of Scholarship and Research Interests
Alik Ismail-Zadeh’s research encompasses the broad fields of theoretical, mathematical, and computational geophysics, as well as applied geosciences. His research interests span Earth sciences, including studies of deep Earth and surface processes such as mantle–lithosphere dynamics, sedimentary basin evolution, salt tectonics, seismicity, and volcanic processes, as well as mathematical and computational sciences, including inverse problems, numerical methods, and computational geosciences. His work also extends to disaster science, covering natural hazards and risks, disaster-related science diplomacy, and the history of science. Areas in which his research has had a significant impact include mathematical geophysics, data assimilation, computational methods in geodynamics, and the study of geohazards and georisks.
Honors, Awards and Other Membership
1993 International Science Foundation Prize, USA
1995 Italian Ministry of Education Fellowship Award, Italy
1995 Academia Europaea Prize for Early Career Scientists, Vienna-Moscow
1997 Swedish Institute Research Fellowship Award, Sweden
1999 Russian President Yeltsin Fellowship Award, Russia
2000 Royal Society Research Fellowship Award, UK
2001 Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship Award, Germany
2007 Elected Secretary-General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
2009 International Award, American Geophysical Union
2011 Honorary Member, IUGG Commission on Geophysical Risk and Sustainability
2012 Axford Distinguished Lecture Award, Asia Oceania Geosciences Society
2013 Honorary Fellow, Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
2017 Member, Academia Europaea
2018 Elected Secretary, International Science Council
2019 Ambassador Award, American Geophysical Union
2019 Fellow, American Geophysical Union
2019 Fellow, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
2021 Distinguished Lecturer, American Geophysical Union
2022 Fellow, International Science Council
2026 Fellow, International Core Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Selected Publications
Professor Ismail-Zadeh is the author, co-author or editor of over 180 publications, including monographs, textbooks, and edited volumes (https://comgeodyn.org/lpub.html).
Ismail-Zadeh, A., Davaille, A., Besse, J., and Volozh, Y. (2024). East European sedimentary basins long heated by a fading mantle upwelling, Nature Communications 15, 3915.
Ismail-Zadeh, A., Castelli, F., Jones, D., and Sanchez, S., eds. (2023) Applications of Data Assimilation and Inverse Problems to the Earth Sciences, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Ismail-Zadeh, A. (2022) Natural hazards and climate change are not drivers of disasters, Natural Hazards 111, 2147-2154.
Ismail-Zadeh, A. (2021) Poor planning compounded European flooding catastrophes, Nature 598 (7879), 32.
Ismail-Zadeh, A., S. Adamia, A. Chabukiani et al. (2020) Geodynamics, seismicity, and seismic hazards of the Caucasus, Earth-Science Reviews 207, 103222.
Cutter, S, Ismail-Zadeh, A., Alcántara-Ayala, I., et al. (2015) Pool knowledge to stem losses from disasters, Nature 522, 277-279.
Ismail-Zadeh, A., Urrutia Fucugauchi, J., Kijko, A., Takeuchi, K., and Zaliapin, I. (2014) Extreme Natural Hazards, Disaster Risks and Societal Implications, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Ismail-Zadeh, A., and Tackley, P. J. (2010) Computational Methods for Geodynamics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Ismail-Zadeh, A., Korotkii, A., Schubert, G., and Tsepelev, I. (2007) Quasi-reversibility method for data assimilation in models of mantle dynamics, Geophysical Journal International 170, 1381-1398.
Ismail-Zadeh, A., Le Mouël, J.-L., Soloviev, A., Tapponnier, P., and Vorovieva, I. (2007) Numerical modeling of crustal block-and-fault dynamics, earthquakes and slip rates in the Tibet-Himalayan region, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 258, 465-485.
Ismail-Zadeh, A., Schubert, G., Tsepelev, I., and Korotkii, A. (2006) Three-dimensional forward and backward numerical modeling of mantle plume evolution: Effects of thermal diffusion, Journal of Geophysical Research 111, B06401.
Ismail-Zadeh, A., Schubert, G., Tsepelev, I., and Korotkii, A. (2004) Inverse problem of thermal convection: Numerical approach and application to mantle plume restoration, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 145, 99-114.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eZl88EMAAAAJ&hl=en
Other Information
https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Ismail-Zadeh_Alik
https://iugg.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2019_IUGG_Fellow_Alik_Ismail-Zadeh_CV.pdf
https://council.science/profile/alik-ismail-zadeh/
AIZ_Acceptance_Letter.pdf
