Martin Gade was born in Lüneburg, Germany, in 1964. In 1991, he joined the Remote Sensing group at the Institute of Oceanography of the University of Hamburg. He received his first degree (Dipl. Phys.) in physics from the University of Hamburg in 1992. In 1996, he received the doctoral degree (Dr. rer. nat.) from the Department of Geosciences at the University of Hamburg.

Dr. Gade's main research interest is directed towards air-sea interactions and their remote sensing using active microwave sensors such as scatterometers and synthetic aperture radar (SAR). He has been actively involved in laboratory and field remote sensing experiments deploying optical, infrared, and microwave sensors, in their analyses, and in the theoretical interpretation of the results obtained.

In order to improve the understanding of radar signatures of marine surface films visible on SAR imagery, Dr. Gade has been performing dedicated experiments in the wind-wave tank of the University of Hamburg. In particular, he has studied the influence of monomolecular surface films (slicks) on fluxes of energy, momentum, and gas at the air-water interface. In addition to the laboratory experiments, Dr. Gade participated in field experiments in the German Bight of the North Sea where artificial (quasi-) biogenic and anthropogenic surface films were deployed while radar backscatter measurements were conducted with the five-frequency/multipolarization scatterometer HELISCAT of the University of Hamburg. More recently, Dr. Gade has organized and conducted improvements and remodelling of HELISCAT, allowing it to be deployed not only during surface film experiments, but also from a radar tower at the mouth of the river Elbe (2000) and on a (BO-105) helicopter during an Arctic Expedition (2004).

In December, 2000, Dr. Gade was visiting scientist at the Dept. of Physical Geography of the University of Stockholm, Sweden. In 2002, he was with the Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, USA.
Dr. Gade has been invited as guest lecturer to various institutes, e.g. to the Polytechnical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain (1999), the Catholic University Eichstädt-Ingolstadt, Eichstädt, Germany (2000), NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA (2002), or the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, Oldenburg, Germany (2004).

Dr. Gade has been frequent reviewer of scientific mansucripts and research proposals for various international journals (e.g., J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, J. Phys. Ocean., Intern. J. Remote Sens., Remote Sens. Environ., IEEE J. Oceanic Eng., IEE Proceed. Radar Sonar Navig.), and research organisations (e.g., Norges forskningsrad, INTAS), respectively.
He is member of

• IEEE
• AMRS
• ADFC
• Förderverein Berliner Schloss