PhD Conferral — ETH Zurich

The formal close to five years of work: the Promotionsfeier (Doctoral Awards Ceremony) at ETH Zurich, January 2026, receiving the diploma from the Rector.

The PhD itself ran from 2021 to 2025 at the Chair of Earth Observation and Remote Sensing, supervised by Prof. Dr. Irena Hajnsek and co-advised by Dr. Kostas Papathanassiou (PolInSAR / tomographic SAR), Dr. Ronny Hansch (Machine Learning), and Dr. Georg Fischer (Cryosphere application), on hybrid AI-physical modelling in interferometric SAR for enhanced parameter retrieval — work that traces a straight line back to a self-built telescope on a Cairo rooftop, a rover built at Cairo University, and a CubeSat project in Istanbul. Different instruments, same question: how to get more signal out of the world.

The full ceremony recording is linked above. The doctoral examination itself — defending the thesis in front of the committee — happened seven months earlier; see the PhD Defence — ETH Zurich album.