Professor
Markus Holopainen, professor of geoinformatics at the University of Helsinki, department of forest sciences, forest resource management and geoinformatics, since 2012. Holopainen received his MSc and PhD in Forestry from University of Helsinki (UH) in 1993 and 1998, respectively, and MSc and Dr. Tech. from Aalto-University (AU), Dept. of Surveying in 1995 and 2011, respectively. Holopainen is the head of the Candidate Degree program in Forest Sciences at the University of Helsinki and senior fellow in the Centre of Excellence in Laser Scanning Research. Holopainen has authored and co-authored 240+ publications of which 150+ are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals or books. Current research interests include utilization of 3-D/4-D data in forest mapping, inventory, management, monitoring, and precision forestry. Starting from 2014 prof. Holopainen’s research group has been part of the Centre of Excellence in Laser Scanning Research CoE-LaSR (http://laserscanning.fi/) in which more than 30 Dr.Sc/PhD’s from Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, University of Helsinki, University of Oulu and Aalto University aim to create new knowledge, science, openings and breakthroughs in the emerging field of Laser Scanning.
E-mail: markus.holopainen@helsinki.fi
University lecturer
Ilkka Korpela (University lecturer in forest information systems) received his M.Sc. in forest mensuration and management in 1993. He did his PhD in digital photogrammetry in 2004 and was appointed a docent in applied photogrammetry at UEF in 2008. He was funded by the academy of Finland for eight years and worked on a wide range topics linked to passive and active optical 3D remote sensing. He has been awarded the decennial Yrjö Ilvessalo prize in forest sciences and the annual Hansa Luftbild award by DGPF. He is currently a member of the editorial boards of RSE and ISPRS JPRS journals.
Post-doctoral researcher
Ville Kankare (born in 1985). I have a strong background in forestry through my family and I started my studies at the Department of Forest Sciences in the University of Helsinki (UH) in the fall of 2006. I received M.Sc. degree in forest resources and technology in December 2010 focusing on the use of individual tree detection as reference in area-based forest inventory. My work continued as a D.Sc. student at the department and I received my D.Sc. (Agr. and For.) degree in August 2015 with a topic: “The prediction of single-tree biomass, logging recoveries and quality attributes with laser scanning techniques”. I am currently working as a post doc –researcher in Prof. Markus Holopainen’s research group at the UH and in Center of Excellence in Laser scanning research. My current research interests focus on forest information applications (inventory, mapping and technology) and precision forestry through state-of-the-art measurement technologies (especially laser scanning). I have currently published or co-authored more than 50 articles (refereed) with an H-index of 20 and over 1100 citations (Google scholar). I have had also the opportunity to act as a speaker in numerous national and international conferences, seminars and workshops.
E-mail: ville.kankare@helsinki.fi
Senior researcher
Samuli Junttila is a senior researcher at the School of Forest Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland and a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki. He received his PhD in 2019 from the University of Helsinki, awarded as the best PhD thesis by the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry. In his PhD, he focused on developing methods for estimating tree health based on multispectral laser scanning. He received an Academy of Finland postdoctoral grant in 2020 and continued research in the field of tree and forest health using multi-, hyperspectral, and microwave remote sensing. In 2023, he received the prestigious ERC Starting Grant and is currently working on estimating the climate risks on global forests. He is studying environmental thresholds for drought- and heat-related tree mortality using a cross-disciplinary approach combining remote sensing, ecophysiology, forest ecology and entomology. He is also an enthusiastic science communicator. He has published science-related music videos with the alias ‘Idän Proffa’, which the Science journal has awarded in the ‘Dance your PhD’ competition.
E-mail: samuli.junttila@helsinki.fi
Post-doctoral researcher
Ville Luoma is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Sciences. He received his M.Sc. in 2013 in forest ecology and management and continued working first as a project researcher for The Laboratory of Forest Resources Management and Geo-Information and then as a doctoral researcher receiving the PhD degree in 2022 from University of Helsinki. His PhD thesis, entitled: "Measuring tree growth using terrestrial laser scanning point clouds" focused on utilization of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) based point clouds in tree and forest growth monitoring. In addition to this, his subjects of interest on field of research are forest mensuration and planning in general as well as improving the production and precision of forest resource information. He has experience from several field work and data collection campaigns both in forest and urban environment. He is responsible teacher for basic courses of geoinformatics (GIS 1 & 2) at the Department of Forest Sciences and is also actively participating in teaching on other courses related to forest resource management, remote sensing and GIS. At the same time Luoma is completing the final part of extended studies in university pedagogy to further improve his knowledge over teaching and learning.
E-mail: ville.luoma@helsinki.fi
Post-doctoral researcher
Jiri Pyörälä received the M.Sc. degree from the University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, in forest resource science and technology with a specialization in wood technology in 2014. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree at the University of Helsinki. He is currently a Researcher with the Centre of Excellence in Laser Scanning Research and the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute. His research interests include wood and timber properties, with a special interest on the use of laser scanning technology to assess the standing timber wood quality.
E-mail: jiri.pyorala@helsinki.fi
Post-doctoral researcher
Tuomas Yrttimaa is a post-doctoral researcher at the School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland. He received his M.Sc. in Forest Resource Management and Geoinformatics in 2018 from the Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, and PhD in 2021 from the School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland. In his doctoral thesis, he developed point cloud-based methods for characterizing trees and tree communities and has later applied the methods in tree growth monitoring and in the investigation of drivers affecting tree growth. His current research interests include the characterization of trees, forest dynamics and tree structural uniqueness with point cloud time series using close-range sensing techniques.
E-mail: tuomas.yrttimaa@helsinki.fi
PhD student
Mohammad Imangholiloo received his M.Sc. in Forest Resource Management and Geoinformatics in 2018 from the Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki. He is a Technical Assistant and a prospective PhD student there. He analysed the use of Sentinel-1 SAR satellite images for national-wide land use/cover mapping using machine learning methods. He studied Geo-information Science and Earth Observation for Natural Recourse Management at the University of Twente in the Netherlands after completing his bachelor in Forestry at the University of Tehran in Iran. He has been participated in research and teaching since spring 2017. His current research interests include characterising the seedling stands using dense point clouds.
Doctoral researcher
Einari Heinaro is a PhD student at the Department of Forest Sciences of the University of Helsinki. He received his M.Sc. (Tech.) degree in Geoinformatics from the Department of Built Environment at Aalto University in 2018. Einari’s PhD research focuses on biodiversity monitoring using remote sensing. He will defend his PhD thesis, entitled “Detecting individual dead trees using airborne laser scanning”, on November 24th, 2023.
E-mail: einari.heinaro@helsinki.fi
Doctoral researcher
Otto Saikkonen is a PhD student at the doctoral program in Sustainable Use of Renewable Natural Resources (AGFOREE), University of Helsinki. He received his M.Sc. in 2021 from University of Helsinki in Forest Ecology and Management specializing in forest production, growth, and yield. Alongside master’s specialization studies he has strong background in GIS and remote sensing. His current research interests include continuous cover forest growth using laser scanning technology.
E-mail: otto.saikkonen@helsinki.fi
Doctoral researcher
Mika Pehkonen is a PhD student at the Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki. He graduated as a M.Sc. in 2022 from University of Easter Finland with a specialization in forest management and forest biomass production. During his master’s studies he worked as a research assistant at the Finish Geospatial Research Institute focusing on assessing standing timber quality. Nowadays, his main research interests focus on to methods of deep learning and how they can be applied to assess standing timber wood quality with laser scanning technology.
E-mail: mika.pehkonen@helsinki.fi
Doctoral researcher
Johanna Roiha is a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. She received a master's degree in archaeology from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki in the spring of 2019 and began her postgraduate studies in the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry in the autumn of 2019. The topic of her dissertation is archaeological data and site locations in Finland. In addition to archaeology studies, she has conducted minor studies in geoinformatics and forest ecology at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry. She conducted archaeological fieldwork during her undergraduate studies and has been involved in several different fieldwork and research projects. In addition to spatial data, surveying technology, and archaeological fieldwork, Johanna is interested in the historical interaction of humans and nature. Apart from her doctoral studies, she also works on the ERC funded project called Animals Make Identities, focusing on data management and spatial data analysis.
E-mail: johanna.roiha@helsinki.fi
Project planner
Hannah O’Sullivan is a Project Planner for the MULTIRISK project at the University of Helsinki. She is also currently completing her PhD part-time (entitled: Evolutionary stable states in 3D) in Quantitative Ecology with Imperial College London (ICL) and Kew Gardens. Before this, she completed a master’s in Computational Ecology and Evolution at ICL on metabolic ecology. Her research interests include plant physiology, ecological and evolutionary modelling and remote sensing. She is also passionate about developing new methodologies for analysing and visualising biological data.
E-mail: hannah.osullivan@helsinki.fi