Wolfgang Wagner holds a Dipl.-Ing. degree in Physics and a Dr.techn. degree in Remote Sensing from TU Wien. To support his master’s and PhD studies, he was awarded fellowships to conduct research at prestigious institutions, including the University of Bern (1993), Atmospheric Environment Service Canada (1994), NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre (1995), the European Space Agency (1996), and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (1996–1998).
Between 1999 and 2001, he worked at the German Aerospace Agency, initially as a project assistant at the Institute of High Frequency Technology, and later as the head of the SAR Applications team at the German Remote Sensing Data Centre. In 2001, he was appointed professor of Remote Sensing at the Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing at TU Wien, where he became the head of the institute in 2006. From 2012 to 2019, he led the newly established Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation, and from 2020, he has served as the dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Geoinformation.

Additionally, Dr. Wagner is a co-founder of the Earth Observation Data Centre (EODC) and has served as a part-time senior scientist since December 2014. His primary research focuses on gaining a deeper understanding of the physical mechanisms that drive the interaction between electromagnetic waves and the land surface. His expertise in microwave scatterometers and Synthetic Aperture Radars has contributed to the retrieval of soil moisture, vegetation, and other land surface variables, facilitating the development of operational soil moisture and flood monitoring services for EUMETSAT and Copernicus.

Dr. Wagner served as President of Commission VII of the International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) from 2008 to 2012. He was a member of the GCOS/WCRP Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate (TOPC) from 2012 to 2016, and chaired the panel from 2017 to 2019. In 2018, he was invited to join the Aerospace Advisory Council of the Austrian Space Promotion Agency (FFG), assuming the role of chair in 2021. Since 2024, he has chaired the scientific advisory board of Geosphere Austria.

Dr. Wagner has received several prestigious accolades, including the ISPRS Frederick J. Doyle Award (2016) and the Friedrich Hopfner Medal from the Austrian Geodetic Commission (2022). He has also been recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in Geosciences from 2018 to 2024. His research has been cited over 38,000 times, and his h-index stands at 98, according to Google Scholar.