The Institute of Geodesy will host Dr. Xiaole Deng, who received the prestigious Humboldt Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, for the years 2023 and 2024. Dr. Deng received his PhD from Wuhan University and was more recently associated to the Department of Earth and Space Sciences of the Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China. In his research he is interested in the basic theory of gravity and magnetic field modeling for geosciences. He studies particularly higher-order gravitational and magnetic potential field tensors (e.g., third-order derivatives of the potential), because such higher-order gravity and magnetic quantities can reveal more detailed information about the gravity and magnetic field than lower-order components. With technology continuously progressing, it will become possible to measure these higher-order gravity and magnetic quantities in the future, either in satellite missions or with terrestrial or airborne systems. In geodesy and geophysics, this particular knowledge of the geopotential fields can be used to study the planet's crust and explore minerals and energy resources.