Keynote Lectures

Brief Bio
Roberto Lattuada holds a PhD in GIS and 3D modelling from the University of London and a Master in Computer Science from the University of Milan. He has more than 15 years of experience in the IT and Mobile industry having worked with companies such as Oracle (US), Vodafone (Italy), Motorola (UK) and T-Mobile International.With a strong experience in strategy and innovation Roberto Lattuada has launched a number of innovative products and services across several industries: he has helped develop the Oracle Spatial suite and he was responsible for the first product supporting geo-imaging within Oracle Spatial, while at Vodafone he was in charge of the first mobile payment solution and at T-Mobile he launched the G1, the first Android-based handset.He is currently CEO of myHealthbox, a company specialized in digital solutions for the healthcare.

Brief Bio
Wolfgang Kainz holds a graduate degree in technical mathematics and computer science and a PhD in GIS from the Graz University of Technology, Austria. He has more than 30 years of experience in education, research and consulting in the field of geographic information science. In his research he focuses on the theoretical issues of GIS in particular related to spatiotemporal modeling, uncertainty, and topology. He was one of the early pioneers working on formal research on spatial relationships based on topology and ordered sets. He has lead several research groups in Austria and The Netherlands where his expertise was requested in numerous consulting projects worldwide. Prof. Kainz has guided more than 20 international PhD students, has excellent scientific connections worldwide, and held visiting professor positions at universities in Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Kuwait, Taiwan, and the USA. Currently he leads the research group on cartography and GIScience at the University of Vienna and serves as chair of the Department of Geography and Regional Research, University of Vienna.

Brief Bio

Ms Professor Dr. Barbara Koch studied Forest Sciences from 1977 to 1982 at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. From 1982 to 1994 she worked as a scientific staff member at the Institute of Land Use Planning and Nature Conservation at the Technical University of Munich (Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich). The main research areas were the use of multispectral optoelectronic airborne scanner data for the detection of forest damage and spectral analysis of vegetation under standardized conditions in the laboratory and field. Her research was interdisciplinary from the start and was carried out in collaboration with the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Chair of Geosciences and Remote Sensing at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, the Institute of Biophysics at the University of Hanover and the Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) in Pasadena, USA. This also led to a research stay at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories in the United States. In 1984 Ms Koch established a working group on “Remote Sensing and Geo-Information Systems in Forestry”.

Over the years, Ms Koch has considerably extended his research activity and carried out numerous research projects for remote sensing and geo-modelling in the framework of forest and landscape analysis (e.g. airborne laser-induced chlorophyll fluorescence measurement to detect the vitality of forest trees). She participated as a co-investigator in the research project for the preparation of the SIR-C mission and she was responsible for the organisation and supervision of AISAR flight campaigns and the analysis of the data for the forest area. The implementation of the research project was carried out in collaboration with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL). The thematic focus was the study of multipolar metric airborne radar data in order to detect various land cover types with emphasis on the cover type forest. She was science team member of the MOMS-02 mission satellite system, the first German mission on the Russian Priroda space station. The thematic focus was the preparation and implementation of the accompanying scientific advice into the mission and the thematic analysis of the data. The project was carried out in collaboration with the DLR, the company Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), the Institute for Photogrammetry at the University of Hanover, Stuttgart and Munich and the Chair of Geosciences and Remote Sensing at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. Furthermore, she participated in the scientific direction of the research project for detecting the forest formations in the Pantanal (Brazil) in the framework of the cooperation project: „Das Pantanal von Mato Grosso, Brasilien: ökologische Charakterisierung, anthropogener Einflüsse, Entwicklungs- und Schutzkonzepte“. The project was carried out in collaboration with the Max-Planck Institute für Limnologie in Plön (Germany) and the University of Cuiabá (Brazil). 
 
Ms Koch was Women's Representative of the Faculty, member of the University Budget Committee, Vice-Dean and Dean. As dean, she was responsible for the conversion of the former Faculty of Forest and Environmental Sciences into the Faculty of Environmental and Natural Resource and had to implement the realignment of teaching and research as part of the expansion of the faculty. At this time, she is Academic Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, board member of the Centre for Renewable Energy, Head of the working group on Education of the University Centre for Sustainability and Transformation and Vice-Chairwoman of the Senate commission. In these roles, she works on the tri-national Science offensive for Environment and Sustainability. As a member of the Steering Committee of the Fraunhofer Research Institutes Freiburg, she is furthermore involved in the development of the cooperation between the Fraunhofer Institut and the University in the area of research and teaching.