What a day. On July 16th we finally got to celebrate something we’d been building toward for months: 25 years of the Earth Observation Research Cluster, together with 10 years of EAGLE (that is still being celebrated and will get its own post next week). Around 250 guests showed up, and honestly, that turnout alone tells you something about the community we’ve built over the years.
The room was full of familiar faces, but also faces we hadn’t seen in ages. Former PhD students who’d gone on to build careers all over the world sat next to current MSc students who are just getting started. That mix is exactly what made the afternoon feel special. It wasn’t just a look back, it was a room full of people at every stage of the same journey.
Prof. Tobias Ullmann opened things up with a talk simply called “25 Years of Earth Observation in Würzburg,” and it set the tone perfectly, tracing how far the group has come since the early days. From there the program moved fast but never felt rushed. Dr. Yvonne Walz joined us from the United Nations University in Bonn to talk about remote sensing at the science-policy nexus, showing just how far this field has reached beyond academia. Prof. Anna Cord followed with a talk on agrobiodiversity, from digital monitoring all the way to next-generation agri-environmental schemes, which sparked a lot of nodding heads in the audience.
Then came two talks that really drove home the “next generation” theme. Laura Obrecht walked us through her scientific journey, starting with grasslands and forests and ending up in urban flood susceptibility research, a path that shows just how flexible this field can be. Clara Vydra spoke about her work at the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, mapping and characterizing global built-up areas for science-for-policy work at the EU level. Two young researchers, two completely different directions, both rooted in what they learned here.
And of course, EAGLE got its moment. Aoibhin Murphy and Dr. Maninder Dhillon took us through the program’s evolution from its first generation of students to its tenth, a genuinely fun retrospective full of memories and a few laughs. Jule Pfeiffer closed out the talks with a personal look at what a year in the life of a 10th generation EAGLE student actually looks like, grounding the whole afternoon in the present moment.
After closing remarks, the real fun started. The evening program brought everyone together for dinner, drinks, and hours of conversation that spilled well past what anyone had planned for. Old colleagues caught up, new connections got made, and there was a lot of reminiscing about how small this whole thing used to be, and how big it’s grown.
Twenty five years is a long time. Looking around that room, at the students, the alumni, the guest speakers who traveled from Bonn and Munich and Ispra just to be there, it was hard not to feel like the next 25 are going to be just as good.
