We are proud to announce that, in a decision dated 5 May 2025, Ali Gholami, who has been affiliated with the Institute of Geophysics PAS since 2022, has been awarded the title of Professor of Science in the discipline of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
This is an exceptional event, as a citizen of Iran is one of the few foreigners to be awarded this title in Poland, and the only such case in the history of our Institute. This unique award honours his impressive scientific achievements, his contribution to the development of geophysics and his outstanding teaching and organisational achievements.
Ali Gholami has already been appointed Professor at the University of Tehran in 2019, becoming the youngest person in the history of the institution to be given this title. From the beginning, his research career has combined geophysics with applied mathematics, leading to the development of novel methods for imaging Earth structures.
He has over 100 scientific publications to his credit and his work has been cited and used in research projects around the world. The algorithms he has developed have been applied, among other things, in the analysis of seismic signals recorded by NASA’s InSight lander on Mars, an example of knowledge transfer from geophysical science to space projects.
Among Ali Gholami’s most important achievements is the Tikhonov-TV method. It is an advanced mathematical tool for solving ill-posed inverse problems. With this method, it is possible to accurately model subsurface geological structures, which is important for both academic research and industrial applications, such as natural resource exploration.
Since 2022, Ali Gholami has been conducting research activities at the Institute of Geophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He is the head of the prestigious SONATA BIS 12 project funded by the National Science Centre, where he has established an interdisciplinary research team developing waveform imaging methods and seismic data analysis.
Ali Gholami is also actively involved in the training of young scientists. He has been the supervisor and co-promoter of a total of 10 PhD theses and 30 Master’s theses.
We warmly congratulate Professor Ali Gholami on this well-deserved award and wish him further scientific success and satisfaction in his research and teaching work!
