People
Core modules
Course | Staff | |
Master's Thesis | Janika Raun (PhD, Programme Director) is junior research fellow in human geography. Her main research intrerests include tourism geography, consumer behaviour, destination functions, tourism impacts, destination marketing, and tracking technologies. | ![]() |
Evelyn Uuemaa (PhD) is head of the Department of Geography and senior researcher in geoinformatics with a strong background in landscape ecology. Her main research interests are landscape analysis (especially quantifying spatial pattern), spatial analysis, landscape planning, water quality modelling in relation to land use changes. She has received EU Horizon 2020 Marie Curie fellow at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand (2015-2017). | ![]() |
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Alexander Kmoch (PhD) is a Post-doctoral Researcher in Geoinformatics with a strong focus on understanding, modelling, and managing of spatial data. His interests include OGC standards and web-services for environmental and spatio-temporal data sharing, modelling and 3D/4D interactive data visualisation. He has a background in computer science (BSc) and has worked in the IT industry in Germany for several years before completing his MSc in Austria and PhD in Geoinformatics in New Zealand. | ![]() |
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Raivo Aunap (PhD) is Associate Professor of Cartography. His main focus is on map design and drawing, terrain modelling, surveying techniques and map coordinate systems. As a Programme Director in Geography, Raivo is tightly working with students and engaged in the development of study programmes. | ![]() |
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Introduction to Geographic Information System | Tõnu Oja (PhD) is Professor of Geoinformatics and Cartography. His main research interests are landscape metrics, uncertainties and relations to landscape consumption; spatial relations of real world phenomena; nutrient cycling in the system plant-soil- atmosphere, environmental impact to spatio-temporal structure of nutrient cycling, dynamics and structure of forest ecosystems; sustainable development, including indicators and regionalisation. He is an expert on Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment. | ![]() |
Planning Project | Veronika Mooses is a PhD student and in Human Geography at University of Tartu. Her main research interests include ethnic and social segregation, human spatio-temporal behaviour, smart cities, and mobile positioning. | ![]() |
Siiri Silm (PhD) is senior researcher in Human Geography and her main research interests have been human geography and planning, space-time behaviour studies, ethnic segregation, social networks, seasonality of human activities, mobile positioning. | ![]() |
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Anto Aasa (PhD) is senior researcher in Human Geography at Tartu University and his research interests include the GIS, spatial statistics, geovisualizations, spatio-temporal behaviour of people, mobile positioning, information and communication technology, bioclimatology, and phenology. He has been active in developing mobile positioning based research methodology. | ![]() |
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Pille Metspalu (PhD) is geographer and has been active in the field of spatial planning over 20 years. She is the leading regional and master planning consultant in Hendrikson&Ko Ltd, a lecturer of spatial planning in Tartu University. Her portfolio as a planning practitioner contains a large number of various planning projects, including Rail Baltic railway, marine spatial planning and more than 70 comprehensive plans for towns and rural municipalities. P. Metspalu has been active in developing planning methodology, she is the author of several planning guidelines. She is a member of the board of Estonian Association of Spatial Planners and Professional Planners’ Licensing Committee. | ![]() |
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Ingmar Pastak is a PhD student and junior researcher in Human Geography at University of Tartu. He has worked on the European Union-funded research project DIVERCITIES, which examined how cities can benefit from urban diversity in terms of social cohesion, social mobility and entrepreneurship. His PhD research focuses on the influence of public and private sector-led urban revitalisation projects in deprived neighbourhoods and displacement pressure caused by revitalisation and gentrification. His main research interests include urban revitalisation, gentrification, socio-spatial inequalities, urban governance and urban diversity. | ![]() |
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Energy Flows and Material Cycles | Ülo Mander (PhD) is Professor of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology. His main research areas are carbon and nutrient cycling in landscapes, constructed wetlands, green infrastructure. He belongs to 1% most cited scientist in the field of ecology and environmental sciences. He has been visiting scientist/visiting professor at various universities and research centers (University of Kiel, Lund University, University of Linköping, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, National Agricultural Research Center for Hokkaido Region, Ohio State University, French National Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture (IRSTEA). Estonian government has awarded him with the National Science Award in the field of argicultural sciences in 2000 and in the field of bio- and geosciences in 2012. | ![]() |
Energy Flows and Material Cycles | Ivika Ostonen (PhD) is senior researcher in Landscape Ecology and she has background in plant ecology and ecophysiology. Her main research interests are root ecology, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, biomass allocation patterns in global change, production, decomposition and nutrient cycling in belowground of different ecosystems, ecosystem adaptation mechanisms in global change, C and N stores and fluxes. She has worked as ecologists in climate experiments and along natural gradients (boreal-temperate forests, soil warming, and fertility). Estonian Government has awarded her with the National Science Award in the field of agricultural science in 2014. | ![]() |
Matthew Zook (PhD) is Professor of Information and Economic Geography in the Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky where he directs the DOLLY project, a repository of billions of geolocated tweets. His research focuses on the production, practices and uses of big geodata. He studies how code, algorithms, space and place interact as people increasingly use of mobile, digital technologies to navigate through their everyday, lived geographies. Of special interest is the duplicitous manner that code and content can congeal and individualize our experiences in our digitally augmented cities. He has served as a Fulbright Fellow at the Mobility Lab at Tartu University, (2013-14), a visiting Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute (2014), and a visiting scholar at the University of Auckland (2016-17). He is currently the managing editor of Big Data & Society and a co-editor of the AAG’s new journal, GeoHumanities. | ![]() |
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Tiit Tammaru (PhD) is Professor of Urban and Population Geography and a visiting researcher at Delft University of Technology. His research interests include migration; residential mobility and neighbourhood change; and integration and segregation of ethnic and social groups over multiple life domains (family, places of residence and work), also in comparative urban studies, and he is the editor of the book Social Segregation in European Capital Cities (Routledge 2016). He is among the top cited researches in the field of urban studies in Eastern Europe. He is leading the development of a longitudinal linked censuses and registers data for urban and population geographic studies in Estonia. Estonian government has awarded him with a title social scientist of the year 2011. | ![]() |
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Anneli Kährik (PhD) is a senior researcher in urban geography at the Department of Geography, University of Tartu. She has particular interest in population, urban and housing research, and her research currently focuses on residential segregation, ethnic integration, and neighbourhood processes with particular focus on Eastern Europe and Nordic countries. | ![]() |
Specialisation module
Course | Staff | |
Visual Geodata Mining | Jukka Matthias Krisp (PhD) is a Professor of Applied Geoinformatics at the University of Augsburg, Germany. His current research interests include Location Based Services (LBS), Geovisualization, Visual Data Mining and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications in ecological network planning. | ![]() |
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Valentina Sagris (PhD) is researcher in Geoinformatics. Her main research interest include conceptual geospatial modelling and database modelling with application for agriculture and biodiversity; land use mapping with remote sensing and compilation of CORINE Land Cover databases in Estonia; land use mapping of cities and studies on urban sprawl in Europe. Recent research projects explore application of thermal remote sensing in urban environment (urban heat islands) and wetlands ecology. | ![]() |
Kiira Mõisja (PhD) is a specialist in geoinformatics and she has profound experience in cartography and topographical data management. She has published many maps and worked at Estonian Land Board where she was responsible for topographical mapping. Her main research interest is spatial data quality. | ![]() |
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Data Science in Remote Sensing | Krista Alikas (PhD) is a researcher in the Remote Sensing Department in Tartu Observatory, University of Tartu. Her research interest are satellite-based applications for monitoring inland and coastal waters for water quality studies and management purposes. She has been actively involved in European Space Agency satellites ENVISAT/MERIS and Sentinel-3/OLCI validation teams. | ![]() |
Introduction to Urban Planning | Daniel B. Hess (PhD) is Professor of Urban Planning in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York (USA). Trained as a civil engineer and urban planner, his scholarship explores how transportation, housing, and access foster social and economic functions of cities. Recent research projects in Estonia explore the legacy of town planning and how the wide-ranging effects of various occupations affect local and national planning systems and planning practice. His research also seeks to explain housing systems and historical and current population dynamics to explore the effects of inherited segmentation from state socialism. | ![]() |
Economic Geography of Urban Systems | Frank Witlox (PhD) is Professor of Economic Geography at Ghent University, a Visiting Professor at Tartu University and an Honorary Professor at The University of Nottingham. His research focuses on travel behaviour analysis and modelling, travel and land use, sustainable mobility issues, business travel, cross-border mobility, city logistics, global commodity chains, globalization and world city-formation, polycentric urban development, and locational analysis of corporations. He is the chairman of the Benelux Interuniversity Association of Transport Economists, of the Institute of Sustainable Mobility at UGent, and of the Belgium Institute of Transport Organizers. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Transport Geography and an Associate Editor of Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie. | ![]() |
Merle Muru (PhD) is a researcher in Geoinformatics. Her research interests are landscape modelling and relief analysis. Her research is focused on palaeogeography, reconstruction of past sea-level changes, morphology and evolution of coastal areas, and patterns of prehistoric human settlement. | ![]() |
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Work Placement | Garri Raagmaa (PhD) is Associate Professor of Regional Planning. His research area is about regional planning and development focusing on regional innovation, entrepreneurship, identity and leadership issues. He has taught regional planning, economic geography and regional innovation systems at several Nordic and Baltic Universities. He is a national representative of the Regional Studies Association and the Association of European Schools of planning as well as a member of the Association of Estonian Planners and the Estonian Economic Association. | ![]() |
Project Management | Kairi Põldsaar (PhD) Kairi Põldsaar is Geology Senior Specialist and Program Manager of geology and environmental science curriculas. Her main research interests are sedimentology and stratigraphy, with special focus on high energy marine and coastal processes and reconstruction of ancient sedimentary environments. In addition to scientific research, she has also actively contributed into science popularization for the past 10 years. She has been the curator of many successful science exhibitions, written and managed numerous science popularization related projects, composed and published printed and interactive educational materials for schools and public and organised various public events. | ![]() |