People

Benjamin Gérard is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Geosciences and Geography at the University of Helsinki. As part of the EXTRACT project, he works on the development of the to better constrain exhumation and burial histories from low-temperature thermochronology data. His broader research interests include landscape evolution and crustal dynamics across a variety of geological and climatic settings. Benjamin obtained his PhD in Geosciences from Université Grenoble Alpes (France) in 2019 and has previous research and teaching experience in Toulouse (GET) and Nantes (LPG).

Mehrnoosh Ghadimi is a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki at the Department of Geosciences and Geography. She started her collaboration within and with HUGG in 2016. She received her Ph.D. degree from the University of Tehran, Iran in 2013. In 2012-2013 she spent a period at Zaragoza University in Spain. Currently, she is a lecturer at the University of Tehran. Her expertise and research interests include geomorphology, glacial geomorphology, karst, natural hazards, and remote sensing, and especially the application of radar data.

Miisa Häkkinen is a doctoral student at the Department of Geosciences and Geography at the University of Helsinki. Her doctoral research focuses on the metamorphic and tectonic evolution of southern Finland during the late stages of the Svecofennian orogeny. The project is led by and co-supervised by at the University of Helsinki, and Pentti Hölttä and Sayab Muhammad at the Geological Survey of Finland. Miisa holds an M.Sc in Solid Earth Geosciences (2020) from the University of Paris and a B.Sc in Geosciences (2018) from La Rochelle University.

Sanni Laaksonen is a master’s student in the MSc Programme in Geology and Geophysics at the University of Helsinki. Her master’s thesis investigates the rates of burial and exhumation in Fennoscandia using an inversion modeling approach with deep time thermochronology data. Sanni received her Bachelor's degree in Geosciences from the University of Helsinki in 2023.

Tuija Luhta is a doctoral student and Team Manager at the Geological Survey of Finland. Her interests are in microseismic swarms in Finland and their potential relationship to processes including glacial isostatic adjustment. Her research focus is on the Kouvola region in Finland in a project jointly supervised by . Tuija received a Master's degree in Solid Earth Geophysics from the University of Helsinki in 2019.

Ann-Kathrin Maier is a doctoral student at the Department of Geosciences and Geography at the University of Helsinki. Her doctoral research, part of the EXTRACT project led by David Whipp, is centred around low-temperature thermochronology. She aims to determine the timing and rates of craton exhumation and burial in Finland by exploiting the effects of radiation damage on the zircon and apatite (U-Th)/He systems. Ann-Kathrin holds a Master's degree in Geosciences (2023) from the University of Tuebingen in Germany, where she first developed her interest in thermochronology.

Elisa Muñoz is a Master's student at the University of Helsinki interested in Solid Earth Geophysics. Elisa's thesis focuses on Paleoproterozoic tectonics and its relationship with orogenic gold formation through geodynamic modelling. The project is co-supervised by HUGG members Leevi Tuikka and David Whipp. Elisa holds a Bachelor's degree in Geological Engineering from the ESPOL Polytechnic University in Ecuador.

Liisa Nygrén is a Master’s student in the MSc Programme in Geology and Geophysics at the University of Helsinki. In her thesis, jointly supervised by Seija Kultti, she investigates the glacial history and landscape evolution of Fennoscandia by developing an inverse model and applying it to exposure age data based on cosmogenic nuclide dating. Liisa completed her Bachelor’s studies in Astronomy, Physics at the University of Helsinki in 2024. 

Veikko Peltonen is a doctoral student with interests in cosmogenic radionuclide dating and its applications to glaciated landscapes. Veikko's thesis investigates the Quaternary glacial history in Finland and evidence of past glacial transport of boulders using cosmogenic radionuclide dating of transported boulders. Veikko's thesis is jointly supervised with . He received his Master's degree in Geology from the University of Helsinki in 2020.

Leevi Tuikka is a doctoral researcher interested in numerical geodynamic modeling and high-performance computing. Leevi's doctoral research project focuses on understanding the tectonics of Paleoproterozoic orogenesis using numerical geodynamic models. His doctoral research project builds on his MSc thesis (completed in 2023), where he created generic 3D models of continent-continent collision for the Paleoproterozoic using the DOUAR software. Leevi completed his Bachelor's studies in Theoretical Physics in 2020.

David Whipp is a Professor of Geodynamic Modelling and the leader of the Geodynamics group. He received a doctoral degree in 2008 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in the US and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Rennes, France and Dalhousie University, Canada before joining the University of Helsinki in 2013. His research interests include the interaction of geodynamic and geomorphic processes, low-temperature thermochronology, tectonics of oblique plate convergence, and high-performance computing. Detailed information is available in .