Welcome to the website of the Chair of Geomatics and Geomathematics

Endowed Chair of the City of Ingolstadt

One of Professor Ray's main areas of work is multi-scale modeling. She cooperates with geoscientists to find out more about the composition and structure of soils. “The microstructure of the soil has a direct influence on its macroscopic behavior. One focus of my work is therefore to build bridges between these two scales,” explains Professor Ray. As the composition of soils is not static, but constantly changing, this places particular demands on multi-scale modeling of issues in this area. Soil plays an important role in questions of energy, sustainability, climate and the environment - as a reservoir for water and carbon and as a habitat for microorganisms. For example, multiscale modeling provides the basis for simulating the absorption of water and nutrients by roots as well as ideal living conditions for microorganisms - also as a basis of knowledge for combating hunger.

About us

The Team

Publications

Research

Teaching

CV

Contact

Math News

04-30-2026

Successful PhD Defense of Dr. Johannes Gückel

We are pleased about the successful PhD defense of Johannes Gückel.

Under the supervision of Prof. Pirmin Fontaine, Johannes made a significant contribution to the field of urban logistics and collaboration among logistics service providers. He developed innovative mathematical models, metaheuristics, and machine learning approaches to design efficient and fair cooperative city logistics systems. His work particularly addresses network design, fair cost allocation, and the practical implementation of collaboration concepts. The results demonstrate how efficiency and fairness can be jointly considered in urban freight systems. Johannes now continues his career as a Data Scientist at dm-drogerie markt. We wish him all the best for his future career.

His dissertation resulted in four scientific articles, which have been published or accepted for publication in renowned academic journals:

Gückel, J., Crainic, T.G., & Fontaine, P. (2026). A two-step large neighborhood search for a collaborative two-tier city logistics system. European Journal of Operational Research (VHB: A).
Gückel, J., Crainic, T.G., & Fontaine, P. (2025). Tactical planning in cooperative two-tier city logistics systems with fairness constraints. Sustainability Analytics and Modeling (VHB: B).
Gückel, J., & Fontaine, P. (2025). Fast Shapley Value Approximation Through Machine Learning With Application in Routing Problems. Networks (VHB: A).
Gückel, J. (2025). Approximating Shapley values with subcoalition Shapley values in routing problems. Transportation Research Procedia (VHB: C).

MIDS seminar

Mathematical Institute for Machine Learning and Data Science

The Chair of Geomatics and Geomathematics is part of the Mathematical Institute for Machine Learning and Data Science, MIDS.
Learn more about MIDS here.