Alumna Christina Kallimani - Geo-Information Science

The Geo-Information Science Master in Wageningen University was a nice continuation on my previous studies, a Geo-technology and Environment Master at TUC (Greece) and a Bachelor in Geography at HUA (Greece). Initially it was the Remote Sensing related research of the GRS department, and the career prospects of the Master itself that caught my attention. However, this was only the outer shell that I could yet see before the beginning of my studies.

During the Master, the flexibility in choice of courses allowed me to create a study program matching my interests, equipping me with in-depth knowledge in Remote Sensing and GIS. The courses I followed were highly enjoyed, and proved valuable for my thesis, internship and future work. Throughout the studies we had excursions, fieldworks, and group work activities that enhanced our communication, adaptability, and team work skills.

There was a nice balance of theory and hands-on exercises during the courses, while we had access to various advanced software and hardware for our research and fieldwork projects. During the Master, I had the opportunity to work as student assistant for the ‘Remote Sensing’ course, which was a valuable teaching experience.  Also, I was member of the MGI Program Committee which aims in improving the program by monitoring the evaluation results and applying changes when necessary; which gave me an insight of the program’s core values.

Sensing the environment with the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), was the research field that mostly caught my attention during a Capita Selecta course. Consequently, both my thesis and internship topics involved the analysis of ultra-high resolution UAV based data for forest and agriculture applications. In my thesis, I investigated the use of photogrammetric point clouds for the extraction of tree crown shape parameters. For my internship, I moved from forestry to precision agriculture and worked on early crop emergence detection and crop counting. The company that offered me this internship opportunity is Aurea Imaging (NL) and along with my internship project I learned a lot about the whole procedure from flight planning, data acquisition, processing and advanced analysis.

Upon the end of my internship I was offered a job from Aurea Imaging, and currently I am responsible for the data processing/analysis on our projects. I mostly enjoy the combination of the fieldwork, for the data collection, and the processing /analysis of the acquired data. The variation between the projects (precision agriculture, forestry, construction sites, humanitarian projects), the fusion of different sensors (hyperspectral, multispectral, thermal, RGB), combination of UAV platforms (multi-copters, fixed-wing), in this job is something that makes it special and unique!

Looking back at my studies, I would not change a thing! The sky is not the limit!

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