Professor of Geoinformatics, PhD
Petri Pellikka is professor of geoinformatics at the Department of Geosciences and Geography since 2002. Petri leads Earth Change Observation Laboratory and has a second affiliation with the Institute for Atmosphere and Earth System Research (INAR) of the University of Helsinki. His research focuses on the application of remote sensing data and other geospatial data for land cover change detection with a focus in Africa. He is interested in the causes and consequences of land change to climate, water resources, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Being the director of the Taita Research Station of the University of Helsinki in Kenya he focuses on environmental studies especially in Kenya.
Petri carried out his undergraduate studies at the University of Oulu and graduate studies at the University of Helsinki focusing on development geography in late 1980s. In his Ph.D. studies at Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität in Munich in the early 1990s, he focused in remote sensing, namely on spectral and geometric corrections for airborne video camera data for land cover studies. He has worked earlier at the Academy of Finland, National Land Survey of Finland (Finnish Geodetic Institute) and is an adjunct professor at the University of Turku, Finland. He has been visiting scientist or professor at Carleton University (Canada), Cambridge University (UK), Lund University (Sweden), University of Ghent (Belgium), Peking University (China), University of Canterbury (New Zealand) and Wuhan University (China). In the early 2000s, he was working on remote sensing of glaciers as indicators of climate change by leading an international FP5 project OMEGA.
Petri understands environmental change in a holistic way, and not just as pixels and coordinates. He has been funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland to develop strategies for food security and ecosystem resilience in order to adapt to climate change in Africa, but also to come up with mitigation solutions. His current projects are ESSA funded by Directorate of the International Partnerships of the European Commission and REACT (Regenerative agricultural systems for climate resilience in agroecological gradient in East Africa) funded by the Academy of Finland.
He has been member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters since 2010.
University Researcher, PhD
JANNE HEISKANEN is a University Researcher at ECHOLAB and the Finnish Meteorological Institute, holding a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Helsinki (2008). His research specializes in remote sensing of vegetation biophysical attributes, land cover dynamics, and climate change impacts, with a focus on tropical and semi-arid areas, as well as boreal environments. Janne utilizes various remote sensing techniques, including optical satellite imagery, hyperspectral remote sensing, and airborne laser scanning. He also teaches remote sensing courses, such as the Hyperspectral Remote Sensing course.
Research Coordinator, Crop Physiologist
Kiflemariam Yehuala Belachew is a crop physiologist with a PhD in Plant Production Sciences, an MSc in Horticulture, and a BSc in Plant Sciences. He specializes in morpho-physiological and biochemical mechanisms behind abiotic stress tolerance in crops. Currently, he is a Research Coordinator in the Department of Geosciences and Geography at the University of Helsinki (since June 2023). In this role, he oversees technical and financial activities for an EU-funded project, teaches courses on Climate Change and Rural Development to Faculty of Science students, and conducts climate-smart crop research in Kenya. Additionally, he coordinates and contributes to EU-AU African Horizon funding proposals.
Previously, he held an Assistant Professorship at Bahir Dar University’s Department of Horticulture (April 2022 - August 2024) alongside his role as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the University of Helsinki’s Department of Agricultural Sciences (November 2019 - May 2023). During his postdoctoral tenure, he contributed to the ERANET SusCrop project “ProFaba,” where he assessed acidity and Al3+ toxicity responses in 200 faba bean germplasm collections across Europe. From 2021 to 2023, he served as Work Package Coordinator for climate-smart agriculture in East and South Africa under the EU Horizon 2020 InnoFoodAfrica project. During this period, he taught courses for undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students at the University of Helsinki.
His PhD thesis, "Shoot and Root Traits Associated with Acid Soil and Drought Tolerance in Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.)," was completed at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki. As a PhD student from 2015 to 2019, he gained valuable experience at leading phenotyping facilities: Finland’s National Plant Phenotyping Infrastructure (NaPPI), the Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Jülich Plant Phenotyping Center at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Germany.
Doctoral Researcher, MSc
Antti Autio is a doctoral researcher at the department of Geosciences and Geography since 2018. He holds a master’s degree in Development Geography from the University of Helsinki. He studies in the Doctoral Programme in Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences (DENVI) and his research focuses on smallholder farmer’s adaptation to climate change in East Africa from the perspective of political ecology.
Postdoctoral researcher
Morice Odhiambo is a Biosystems engineer working in the Regenerative Agricultural Systems for Climate resilience in Agroecological Gradient in East Africa (REACT) project. His research is at the interface of agrotechnology and climate change where he applies soil-plant-atmosphere continuum models to develop climate-resilient, water-efficient and carbon-sequestering cropping systems for smallholder farming in Kenya. He is also a Agri-food and Climate Change consultant and partners with non-governmental organizations and private sector businesses to deliver solutions to smallholder farmers. He received his MSc. And PhD in Agri-Bioenvironmental and Energy Engineering from Nanjing Agricultural University in Nanjing, China.
Doctoral Researcher, MSc
Ian Ocholla received his B.Sc. degree in Geomatic engineering and Geospatial Information Systems (2016) and M.Sc. degree in Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing (2021) from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya. He has worked as a GIS and remote sensing assistant at the Kenya Agricultural Livestock Research Organization. He started his Ph.D. studies in doctoral programme in Atmospheric Sciences under the funding from European Commission (ESSA project) in 2021. His research focuses on using deep learning in detecting cattle from aerial and satellite images in Taita Taveta County in Kenya.
Doctoral Researcher, MSc
Ilja Vuorinne has been a doctoral researcher in the group since 2021, working within the ESSA project. Before that, he studied geography at the University of Turku, Finland, and the University of Sheffield, UK, earning his MSc from the University of Helsinki with a specialisation in geoinformatics. In his research he applies hyperspectral remote sensing to map invasive species and biodiversity. Since his arrival at the University of Helsinki, Ilja has also been teaching various GIS and remote sensing courses.
Pauline Ogola is pursuing a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences at the Geosciences and Geography Department, University of Helsinki. She holds a BSc in Environmental Studies (Resource Conservation) and a MSc. Environmental Studies (Agroforestry and Rural Development) from Kenyatta University. She is enthusiastic about Environmental management using Geospatial sciences. She works at the Regional Centre of Mapping of Resources for Development as a Remote Sensing Analyst. Her research focuses on Remote Sensing of Water pan hydrodynamics and land degradation in Agropastoral environment.
Doctoral Researcher, MSc
Ashfak Mahmud holds a BSc degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh, and an MSc degree in Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation from ITC, University of Twente in the Netherlands. He completed his master's thesis in collaboration with Planet Labs, where he worked on the detection of waterlogging and monitored its impact on winter wheat development using radar and optical satellite images. He started his Ph.D. in 2022 at the University of Helsinki, Finland where he is working on measuring spectral-temporal characteristics and monitoring of small-holder cropping systems to target and scale-up regenerative agriculture management interventions based on remote sensing and hyperspectral proximal sensing data in Kenya. His research is part of the Regenerative Agricultural Systems for Climate Resilience in Agro-ecological Gradient in East Africa (REACT project).
Doctoral Researcher, MSc
Zhaozhi Luo received the B.Sc. degree in remote sensing science and technology in 2020 and the M.Sc. degree in resource and environment in 2022 in School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering from Wuhan University, Wuhan, China. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in doctoral programme in atmospheric science of the University of Helsinki, Finland. His major research interests include hyperspectral image restoration, classification, change detection and machine/deep learning.
BINYAM TESFAW HAILU joined the research group in 2012 as a doctoral researcher under the CHIESA project. He defended his Ph.D. dissertation in 2016 entitled Multi-scale assessment of land changes in Ethiopia – understanding the impacts of human activities on ecosystems services. Dr. Binyam is an associate professor of geoinformatics at the School of Earth Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia and affiliate member of African Academy of Sciences (2021-2025-Cohort 6); he carried out postdoctoral research at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany (http://bale.geographie.uni-marburg.de:12921/) on how humans benefited from and re-shaped African high altitude ecosystems during Quaternary climatic changes; He is a visiting scientist at the department of geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki (2020-2024), Co-PI and a partner (Addis Ababa University) for the ESSA Project funded by the European Commission.
Postdoctoral Researcher, PhD
Matti Räsänen is working at the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR). His main interest is the hydrology of smallholder farming systems and drip irrigation in Kenya. He has also used eddy covariance and chamber measurement techniques to study carbon and water exchange at African savannas.
Visiting Scholar, PhD
SHEILA WACHIYE received a BSc in environmental studies from Kenyatta University and a MSc in GIS & Remote Sensing from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya. Currently, she is as a junior research fellow at the School of Agricultural sciences & Natural Resources at Kabianga University, Kenya. Her Ph.D. studies began in October 2017 under the funding of the Schlumberger Foundation, Faculty for the Future program within ECHOLAB and the Doctoral Programme in Atmospheric Sciences. As part of her research, she investigated greenhouse gas emissions from various land cover and land use types and their impact on climate change in the Taita Taveta County, Kenya in cooperation with Lund University, Sweden and International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi Kenya. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Helsinki, Kumpula campus, in June 2022.
Researchers from other groups, who often collaborate with ECHOLAB members.
Associate Professor, PhD
EDUARDO EIJI MAEDA is an Associate Professor with the Department of Geosciences and Geography and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. He leads the Terrestrial Ecosystem Dynamics Laboratory (TreeD lab), which research applies the most recent geospatial technologies to understand how humans are affecting the natural environment. Eduardo collaborates closely with ECHOLAB, through the supervision of PhD and MSc thesis of group members.
Research Coordinator, PhD
Tino Johansson is a research coordinator at the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS). He holds a Ph.D. in geography, specializing in environment, development, and sustainability. His research focuses on the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and food security. Tino is interested in community-based natural resources management, sustainable transition towards climate-smart landscapes, and tries to understand the drivers and consequences of human-wildlife conflicts for developing solutions and coping mechanisms. He has twenty years’ experience on managing national and international research and development projects, such as GIS education projects in Europe and environmental health projects in East Africa.
Postdoctoral Researcher, PhD
Sara Alibakhshi is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. She is interested in the application of remote sensing in addressing global challenges such as climate change. During her Ph.D. studies, she developed a deep understanding of big data analysis and programming in R and Google Earth Engine (JavaScript) and time series analysis. Her M.Sc. and B.Sc. in environmental science focused on quantitative analysis of ecosystem dynamics and energy flux modeling.
Doctoral Researcher, MSc
Iris is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Geosciences and Geography since 2021 in the University of Helsinki and University of Edinburgh Partnership Programme on Forests. She did her Master's degree in Geoinformatics in the University of Helsinki in 2020 studying the impact of canopy cover on microclimate in Taita Hills. She is currently finalizing her PhD work about the effects of forest management on microclimates in boreal forests. Specifically, her interest lies in how remote sensing tools can assist in investigating the complex relationships between forest structure and microclimatic variability.
University Lecturer, PhD
PETTERI MUUKKONEN is a university lecturer in geoinformatics and an adjunct professor (title of docent) in biogeography. He is also the director of the Master’s Programme in Urban Studies and Planning (USP). In addition to research, Petteri has also a teaching qualification as a subject teacher of geography and biology. Due to his background as a teacher, he has recently expanded his research topics to also cover the pedagogy of geography and educational sciences. In addition, Petteri is a member of the Teachers’ Academy.
Petteri supervises PhD theses, MSc theses and BSc theses in the fields of geoinformatics and the pedagogy of geography. He also teaches geoinformatics and GIS in various master’s and bachelor’s level courses.
Helsinki Regional Transport Authority
Postdoctoral Researcher, Philipps-Universität Marburg
Terrasolid
Forest Nepal Software, Visiting Scholar at the University of Helsinki
Postdoctoral Researcher, NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Kenya Wildlife Service
Postdoctoral researcher, Viral Zoonoses Research Unit, University of Helsinki
Finnish Environmental Institute
Senior Researcher, Department of Computer Science
Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute
Senior Lecturer, Dedan Kimatki University of Technology
Associate Professor, University of Tehran
Associate Professor, McMaster University
Senior Researcher, The Geological Survey of Finland
Researcher, LUT School of Engineering Sciences
Lecturer, China University of Geosciences
Assistant Research Professor, University of Maryland
Sharper Shape Group
Researcher, Adjunct Professor, University of Helsinki
Assistant Professor, University of Twente