Markku is a forester educated at the University of Helsinki, with a postdoctoral fellowship completed at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. Before returning to Helsinki, he served as a research professor at Peking University. He has lived on five continents and built a diverse career across academia, national research institutes, an international NGO, and a private consultancy. His research spans a wide range of topics, including tree structure, natural disturbances, land use, and ecosystem carbon dynamics.
Markku is responsible for the following courses:
Titta Has expertise in remote sensing of vegetation (boreal forest canopy and understory, LAI, fPAR, phenology, spectra), forest classification and mapping (biodiversity, species, structure), and forest (dynamics) modelling (Formit-M, EFDM, Yasso).
Forest wind disturbances remain inconsistently mapped and poorly understood at the global scale. Wen aims to create a global map of forest wind disturbances using over 20 years of satellite imagery, analyzing sudden decreases in Leaf Area Index to detect disturbances and coupling them with wind data. This will provide detailed insights into the patterns, frequency, and severity of wind disturbance events, helping us better understand forest resilience under climate change.