Markus Rex

Markus Rex (born 28 November 1966 in Braunschweig, Germany) is a German polar researcher, climate scientist, physicist, and author. His research focuses on atmospheric physics, polar climate processes, ozone depletion, and interactions between the atmosphere and sea ice. He is best known for leading the MOSAiC expedition (2019–2020), the largest international Arctic research expedition to date. He is a professor at the University of Potsdam and serves as head of the Atmospheric Physics Section at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI). Markus Rex was born in Braunschweig, as was his sister Gundula, to Dietrich Rex, a professor of space engineering, and Ursula Rex (née Schiller). After completing his secondary education at the Raabeschule in Braunschweig in 1986, he studied physics, geophysics, and meteorology at the Technical University of Braunschweig. He later continued his studies in Göttingen and completed his diploma thesis in 1992 using data from an Arctic research project. The thesis, titled Stratospheric Ozone Depletion Rates Derived from Ozone Sounding Data of the EASOE Campaign, marked the beginning of his research on the polar ozone hole. Rex earned his Ph.D. from the Free University of Berlin in 1997 under the supervision of Karin Labitzke and Steven Pawson. His dissertation was titled Ozone Depletion in the Arctic Stratosphere: Results of a New Measurement Strategy (Match) (German: Der Ozonabbau in der arktischen Stratosphäre: Ergebnisse einer neuen Meßstrategie (Match)).