People
Our group consists of people enthusiastic in developing groundbreaking estimation, machine learning, computer vision and signal processing algorithms for creating accurate and reliable navigation and situational awareness based on artificial intelligence for sustainable smart cities.
Laura Ruotsalainen, Associate Professor

Laura Ruotsalainen is an Associate Professor of Spatiotemporal Data Analysis for Sustainability Science at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She leads a research group in spatiotemporal data analysis for sustainability science (SDA) which performs research on estimation, Machine Learning and Computer Vision methods using spatiotemporal data for sustainable smart cities especially via smart mobility. She is a member of the steering group of the Finnish Center for AI (FCAI) and leads a FCAI Highlight area called AI for Sustainability. She is also a professor at the Helsinki Institute of sustainability Science (HELSUS), which is a cross-faculty research unit in sustainability science within the University of Helsinki.

Ahmed Al-Tachmeesschi, Postdoctoral researcher

Ahmed Al-Tahmeesschi received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in communications engineering from the University of Technology, Baghdad, Iraq, in 2009 and 2011, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, U.K., in 2018. From 2019 to 2021, he was a Research Scientist at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. He is currently a FCAI funded Postdoctoral Researcher with the University of Helsinki. His research interests include cognitive radio networks, dynamic spectrum access techniques, 5G positioning and machine learning.

Arul Elango, Postdoctoral researcher

Arul Elango Ganapathy is a Postdoctoral Research fellow at Spatiotemporal Data analysis group, Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki, Finland. Previously, he worked as a Post doctoral Research fellow in LASSENA Laboratory, Ecole de Technologie Superieure, Montréal, Canada. He has completed his Ph.D from Pondichéry Central University, Puducherry, India. He obtained masters degree in Applied Electronics from College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai. He has over 12 years of experience in teaching, research and 3 years of industrial experience in GPS Receiver design. His research work is focusing on developing various Signal Processing algorithms to counteract the effects of intentional and unintentional threats to software defined GNSS receivers and designing of software based GNSS Signal Simulators. He has several publications to his credit in various International Journals and Conferences. He acted as a reviewer and Editorial board member for peer reviewed International Journals and Conferences.

Klavdiia Bochenina, Postdoctoral researcher

Klavdiia Bochenina is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Spatiotemporal Data analysis group (SDA), department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki. She has a PhD in Computer Science on scheduling for cloud computing applications. Before joining the SDA group, she worked as a Senior Researcher and the Head of the Algorithmics of Complex Systems research lab at National Center for Cognitive Studies of ITMO University. In the SDA group she works in the Artificial Intelligence for Urban Low-Emission Autonomous Traffic (AIForLessAuto). Her research interests include complex systems simulation, modelling of socio-economical systems, complex networks, data-driven modelling and forecasting, parallel and distributed computing.

Niclas Joswig, Doctoral Researcher

Niclas Joswig started as a doctoral researcher in 2021 after he finished his Master at the University of Helsinki. In the past he has been working on a project about visual navigation inside industry premises in collaboration with Konecranes. Currently he focuses on pedestrian navigation in challenging indoor environments as part of the CANDO II project.

Matti Leinonen, Doctoral Researcher

Matti Leinonen started as a doctoral researcher at the department of computer science in 2021. He completed both his bachelor and master studies in computer science at the University of Helsinki, focusing on algorithms and data analysis. He currently works on the CouSCOUS project, developing deep learning methods for traffic flow prediction and creating simulations for sustainable urban planning and development.

Titti Malmivirta, Doctoral Researcher

Titti Malmivirta is a doctoral researcher at the department of Computer Science. Her research concentrates on developping deep learning methods for GNSS resilience. She is working in the Reason (AoF) and Arfidaas II (ESA) projects.

Teemu Sarapisto, Doctoral Researcher

Teemu Sarapisto started as a doctoral researcher in the Spatiotemporal Data Analysis group in the fall of 2022. Before that he worked as a research assistant and did his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in computer science at the University of Helsinki. He has over 5 years of industry experience from working in companies such as Varjo, Yleisradio, and Reaktor among others. Previously he focused on topics such as computer vision, hyperspectral imaging, 3D graphics, and web development. Currently he is working in the space system failure prediction (NASA) project, doing research on machine learning for anomaly detection from high-dimensional sensor data.

Mikko Saukkoriipi, Doctoral Researcher

Mikko Saukkoriipi joined the Spatiotemporal Data Analysis group as a doctoral researcher in the spring of 2022. He has a data science Master's degree (2022) and a mathematics Bachelor's degree (2019), both from the University of Helsinki. He also has an air traffic controller degree (2013). Before joining the SDA group, he has worked as a machine vision engineer, air traffic controller, and simulator specialist. Currently, he is doing computer vision research on Artificial Intelligence for Industrial Vision project (AIV).

Sara Pyykölä, Doctoral Researcher

Sara Pyykölä started out in the SDA group as a research assistant in 2022, writing her master’s thesis about non-Lambertian surfaces and their challenges in computer vision under the supervision of Niclas Joswig and Laura Ruotsalainen. Currently working as a doctoral researcher in the group and pursuing a PhD from computer science under the supervision of Laura Ruotsalainen, her research regards the electric vehicles’ charging station placement in a city-wide scale towards minimizing carbon dioxide emissions using deep reinforcement learning and SUMO simulations. She is currently working in the AIForLEssAuto project with Anton Taleiko and Klavdiia Bochenina. Her previous education is a BSc from mathematics (2021) and a MSc from data science (2022), which are both obtained from the University of Helsinki, where she has resided since 2017.

Banu Turkmen, Research Coordinator

Banu Turkmen is a Research Coordinator in the Spatiotemporal Data Science group at the department of computer science, University of Helsinki. Her role supports the collaboration between the university and other international organizations in the field of machine learning. She has B.Sc. degree in industrial engineering and Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering. She has been teaching as Assistant Professor for 8 years in universities giving courses such as Supply Chain Management, Statistics, Revenue Management and Engineering Economy. She has 12 years of work experience in the airline industry in various roles and functions. Currently she works in a space company doing business development. She has a new hobby, artificial intelligence, attended Aalto University Diploma Program in AI in 2020 and continues FITech studies by machine learning, deep learning and computer vision courses, since then. She likes to contribute social projects as an ML engineer promoting ethical AI.

Anton Taleiko, Computer science student performing non-military service

Anton Taleiko is a computer science student performing his non-military service as a research assistant. He has graduated from the Bachelor’s Programme in Computer Science at the University of Helsinki and will continue his studies in the Master’s Programme in Computer Science after having finished his non-military service. He currently assists Klavdiia Bochenina in her work in the AIForLessAuto project. His tasks mainly consist of creating and running simulations as well as analyzing and processing data.

Co-supervised PhD research

Sergey Nikolskiy is a doctoral student at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He received his master's degree in Applied Mathematics from Saint-Petersburg State Electrotechnical University in Russia in 2005. His current research is focused on GNSS positioning, sensor fusion and maritime navigation. His area of interest includes software GNSS receivers, improving accuracy, detection and mitigation of errors as well as development of spatial data processing algorithms, creation of derivative data products and visualization of spatial data. At the moment he works at the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, Finland, in the Satellite and Radio Navigation research group. Before that he had been a software developer dealing mostly with Java and PostgreSQL in GIS-related projects. His PhD research is jointly supervised by Assoc. Prof. Ruotsalainen and PhD Zahidul Bhuiyan from the FGI.

Anna Brauer is a doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki. She graduated with a master's level degree in computer science (Dipl.-Inf.) from the Dresden University of Technology, Germany. Her current research focuses on the development of location privacy-enhancing methods for human mobility traces. She works at the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI) in the Department of Geoinformatics and Cartography. Her interests include big data and mobility analytics, algorithm development, machine learning, and data visualization. Her PhD research is jointly supervised by Assoc. Prof. Ruotsalainen and Professor Juha Oksanen from the FGI.

 

Photos

SDA group at Suomenlinna on August 2022.

 

SDA group at the Indoor Navigation seminar (INTO) 2019 arranged by HiDATA and FGI.

 

Past members

Zhe Yan

Zhe Yan received his bachelor degree in the field of measurement, control and instrumentation from Southeast University, Nanjing, China, in 2016. He is currently a doctoral student with School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University. His research interests include GNSS receiver techniques, GNSS/INS deeply coupled navigation, optimal estimation and filtering. He is now with Spatiotemporal data analysis research group at the department of computer science, University of Helsinki as a visiting student.

Ghazaleh Kia

Ghazaleh Kia is a doctoral student of the Spatiotemporal data analysis research group at the department of computer science, University of Helsinki. She has completed both her bachelor and master studies in the field of Electrical Engineering focusing on algorithms and Wireless Sensor Networks. Her current research mainly focuses on 5G positioning and cooperative positioning using both 5G and UWB signals for autonomous driving. Ghazaleh’s interests embrace the wide spectrum of computer science including networks, machine learning, programming languages, image processing, algorithms, and databases. Ghazaleh is also interested in sensors and microcontrollers.