Curriculum Vitae
Overview
I lead the Knowledge Infrastructures research group at the TIB — Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology. I hold a PhD in Environmental Informatics from the University of Eastern Finland; a MSc in Environmental Science from the University of Eastern Finland; and a Diploma (MSc) in Informatics from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. My research interests lie at the intersection between research infrastructures and research communities, and how such infrastructures acquire, maintain, and share scientific knowledge about human and natural worlds. Prior to TIB, I held a postdoctoral research associate position at PANGAEA, the Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science, at the MARUM Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Germany. I continue to be affiliated with MARUM. As a member of the Research Data Alliance (RDA), I am involved in various groups, in particular the WG Persistent Identification of Instruments. I have several years of professional experience in software development and semantic technologies, with positions at Hewlett Packard Labs, Bristol, UK and Clark & Parsia, Washington DC, USA. I enjoy working together with scientists and have experiences with aerosol scientists, biogeochemists, and agricultural scientists. I collaborate with environmental research infrastructures, in particular SMEAR (Station for Measureing Ecosystem-Atmosphere Relations), ACTRIS (European Research Infrastructure for the observation of Aerosol, Clouds, and Trace gases), ICOS (European Integrated Carbon Observation System) and NEON (US National Ecological Observatory Network).
Education
I graduated in 2015 with a doctorate (PhD) in Environmental Sciences (Informatics) at the Faculty of Science and Forestry, Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Research Group of Environmental Informatics of the University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, supervised by Professor Mikko Kolehmainen, DSc. The PhD dissertation—entitled Situation Awareness in Environmental Monitoring—explored the representation of situational knowledge extracted from processed data acquired from environmental sensor networks, for situation awareness applications and in environmental research infrastructures. I developed Wavellite and various Wavellite applications.
I graduated in 2017 with a MSc in Environmental Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland. Key areas included biogeochemistry, soil ecology, risk assessment, exposure assessment, environmental health, and environmental epidemiology. The MSc dissertation—entitled Semantic Representation of Marine Monitoring Data—explored the application of semantic technologies to represent and link metadata about and data by sensors utilized in marine monitoring and observation systems.
I graduated in 2007 with a diploma (MSc) in Informatics at the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, Department of Informatics of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, with a diploma thesis supervised by Professor Abraham Bernstein, PhD. Dynamic and distributed information systems, database technologies and software engineering were key areas during the MSc in Informatics. The aim of the MSc dissertation—entitled The Fundamentals of iSPARQL—was to extend the SPARQL query language with similarity measures such that RDF resources can be queried and ranked according to their similarity. Furthermore, we investigated SPARQL query optimization techniques, in particular by means of basic graph pattern selectivity estimation.
Languages
Italian is my mother tongue. I grew up speaking Swiss German and I’m fluent in German. Combined, I spent two years in the UK and the US, where I attained proficiency in English language. I completed the TOEFL iBT with score 110/120. French was my first foreign language in elementary school and I took French classes until the end of high school. I took two semesters of Finnish language classes at the University of Eastern Finland.
Employment
TIB Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology, Hannover, Germany
12/2017 - Present | Research Group Leader | 100%
Head of the Knowledge Infrastructures research group. Advancing the software systems of knowledge infrastructures in their ability to support people and institutions creating, maintaining and sharing knowledge about human and natural worlds. Primarily data science and knowledge graphs in scientific knowledge infrastructures within the earth and environmental sciences.
University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
02/2016 - 11/2017 | Research Associate | 100%
Research associate involved in THOR, ENVRIplus, OpenAIRE2020, and GFBio. THOR is a Horizon 2020 project that aims at seamless integration between articles, data, and researchers across the research lifecycle. ENVRIplus is a Horizon 2020 project that brings together Environmental and Earth System Research Infrastructures, projects and networks, and technical specialist partners to create a more coherent, interdisciplinary and interoperable cluster of Environmental Research Infrastructures across Europe. OpenAIRE2020 is a Horizon 2020 project and large-scale initiative that aims to promote open scholarship and substantially improve the discoverability and reusability of research publications and data. GFBio is a DFG funded project and is the authoritative, national contact point for issues concerning the management and standardisation of biological research data during the entire data lifecycle.
University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland
09/2009 - 01/2016 | Research Assistant | 40-100%
Assisted the implementation of numerous research projects in collaboration with Finnish universities and industry, specifically in modelling methods for situation awareness; smart grids and energy markets; measurement, monitoring and environmental efficiency assessment; high-quality measurement infrastructure for future resilient control systems; and biomass atlas.
Clark & Parsia LLC, Washington, DC, USA
02/2008 - 01/2009 | Software Engineer | 100%
R&D in semantic web technologies with focus on reasoning techniques. Involved in the development of Owlgres, a scalable OWL reasoner implemented on top of PostgreSQL; development of a proof-of-concept application for policy management with XACML-DL; maintenance and development of the Pellet OWL reasoner; design and implementation of a customer project on SPARQL querying over distributed data sources with inference at query time. A paper describing Owlgres was presented at the OWLED 2008 workshop.
HP Laboratories Bristol, UK
05/2007 - 10/2007 | Software Engineer | 100%
Design and development of the ARQ-Optimizer, a cost based static SPARQL query optimizer. The optimizer was fully integrated into ARQ, the Jena SPARQL query processor. A paper describing the results was presented at the WWW 2008 conference.
University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
12/2006 - 04/2007 | Research Assistant | 60%
Research on static SPARQL query optimization with focus on future work identified during the MSc dissertation. The resulting proposal The Scalable Triple Store - Towards Web Scale Storage for RDF Data submitted to the Swiss National Science Foundation was awarded with a grant totalling CHF 168,650.
Farner Consulting AG, Zurich, Switzerland
11/2005 - 03/2007 | Software Developer | 60%
Design and development of Intranet applications. Migration of Farner’s work hours reporting software. End-user software training for employees and customers.
Flooring Adventures LLC, Virginia, USA
08/2005 - 09/2005 | Software Developer | 100%
Design and development of a new e-commerce Web application for Tuff-Seal Tiles, the core product of Flooring Adventures LLC.
Archivista GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland
07/2004 - 10/2004 | Software Developer | 100%
Design and development of an invoicing solution for the company. Responsible for all project phases, from requirements analysis to documentation and end-user training.
Archivista GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland
03/2003 - 12/2005 | Software Developer | 50%
Design and development of software projects for national and international customers. Project leader of the Web-client application for the company’s archiving system. The Web-client became the core component within the company’s product range.
Archivista GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland
04/2002 - 02/2003 | Software Developer | 20%
Migration of the software documentation for the company’s archiving system from Microsoft Word to LaTeX.
Neolution GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland
03/2002 - 02/2003 | Software Developer | 20%
Development of Internet and Intranet Web applications for various customers.
Julius Baer Investment Funds Services, Zurich, Switzerland
10/1999 - 02/2002 | Software Developer | 20%
Design and development of Intranet Web applications.
Julius Baer Investment Funds Services, Zurich, Switzerland
06/1999 - 09/1999 | IT Support | 100%
Software installation and configuration.
Funding
European Commission, H2020, 2017. Connected Open Identifiers for Discovery, Access and Use of Research Resources, FREYA, Project ID: 777523, 01-12-2017 - 30-11-2020. Lead on writing the University of Bremen (PANGAEA) contribution to the proposal. Total: 5,246,117.50 EUR, University of Bremen: 492,500 EUR.
European Commission, H2020, 2015. THOR - Technical and Human Infrastructure for Open Research, Project ID: 654039, 01-06-2015 - 30-11-2017. Lead on the University of Bremen (PANGAEA) contribution to the project. Total: 3,458,250 EUR, University of Bremen: 277,875 EUR.
European Commission, H2020, 2015. Environmental Research Infrastructures Providing Shared Solutions for Science and Society, ENVRIplus, Project ID: 654182, 01-05-2015 - 30-04-2019. Co-lead on the University of Bremen (PANGAEA) contribution to the project. Total: 14,998,034.25 EUR, University of Bremen: 623,750 EUR.
Academy of Finland, 2012. FResCo: High-quality Measurement Infrastructure for Future Resilient Control Systems, Decision No: 264060, 01.01.2013 - 31.12.2015. Assistant on writing the proposal and the University of Eastern Finland contribution to the project. Total: 320,266 EUR.
Tekes, 2010. Measurement, Monitoring and Environmental Assessment, Grant: 427/10, 01.01.2010 - 30.09.2015. Assistant on University of Eastern Finland contribution to the project. Total: 50 M EUR.
Swiss National Science Foundation, 2007. The Scalable Triple Store - Towards Web Scale Storage for RDF Data. Assisted writing the proposal at the University of Zurich. Total: 168,650 CHF.
Peer Review
Applied Soft Computing
Data Science Journal
Earth Science Informatics
Entropy
Environmental Modelling & Software
IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering
IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems
IET Signal Processing
Information Systems
International Journal of Geographical Information Science
Multimedia Tools and Applications
Sensors
Telematics and Informatics
Program Comittee
- Multimedia Technologies for Environmental & Biodiversity Informatics (Springer)
- SciDataCon and International Data Week
Gaborone, Botswana, November 5-8, 2018 - International Semantic Sensor Networks Workshop
In Conjuction with the International Semantic Web Conference
Monterey, California, USA, October 9, 2018 - Extended Semantic Web Conference
Heraklion, Crete, Greece, June 3-7, 2018 - International Conference on Knowledge Capture
Austin, Texas, USA, December 4-6, 2017 - International Workshop on Environmental Multimedia Retrieval
In Conjunction with ACM International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval
Shanghai, China, June 23-26, 2015 - International Workshop on Environmental Multimedia Retrieval
In Conjunction with ACM International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval
Glasgow, UK, April 1, 2014
Conferences
- International Conference on Ecological Informatics
Jena, Germany, September 24-28, 2018 Slides - International Council for Scientific and Technical Information Annual Conference
London, UK, September 11, 2018 Slides - 6th ENVRIweek
Zandvoort, The Netherlands, May 15-17, 2018 - RDA Plenary 11
Berlin, Germany, March 21-23, 2018 - Göttingen-CODATA RDM Symposium
Göttingen, Germany, March 18-20, 2018 Slides - 5th ENVRIweek
Malaga, Spain, November 6-10, 2017 - RDA Plenary 10
Montréal, Canada, September 19-21, 2017 - Geospatial Sensor Webs Conference
Münster, Germany, August 28-30, 2017 Slides - Workshop Ontology & Semantic Web for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Research
Lecce, Italy, July 11-14, 2017 - Symposium on Linking Environmental Data and Samples
Canberra, Australia, May 29 - June 2, 2017 Slides (Keynote) - EGU General Assembly
Vienna, Austria, April 24-28, 2017 Slides - RDA Plenary 9
Barcelona, Spain, April 3-7, 2017 - AGU Fall Meeting
San Francisco, California, USA, December 12-16, 2016 - 3rd ENVRIweek
Prague, Czech Republic, November 14-18, 2016 - PIDapalooza
Reykjavik, Iceland, November 9-10, 2016 Slides - International Data Week
Denver, Colorado, USA, September 12-17, 2016 - First International Workshop on Reproducible Open Science
Hannover, Germany, September 9, 2016 Slides - 2nd ENVRIweek
Zandvoort, The Netherlands, May 9-13, 2016 - EGU General Assembly 2016
Vienna, Austria, April 17-22, 2016 Slides - 1st ENVRIweek
Prague, Czech Republic, November 16-17, 2015 - International Workshop on Semantic Sensor Networks and Terra Cognita
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA, October 11, 2015 Slides - International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Semantic Web
Moscow, Russia, September 30 - October 2, 2015 Slides (Keynote) - International Symposium on Environmental Software Systems
Melbourne, Australia, March 25-27, 2015 Slides 1, Slides 2, Slides 3 - International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software
San Diego, California, USA, June 15-19, 2014 Slides 1, Slides 2 - International Symposium on Environmental Software Systems
Neusiedl am See, Austria, October 9-11, 2013 Slides - Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovations Conference
Halkidiki, Greece, September 27-30, 2012 Slides - International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software
Leipzig, Germany, July 1-5, 2012 Slides - International Symposium on Environmental Software Systems
Brno, Czech Republic, June 27-29, 2011 Slides - International Conference on Adaptive and Natural Computing Algorithms
Kuopio, Finland, April 23-25, 2009 - International World Wide Web Conference
Beijing, China, April 24, 2008 Slides - European Semantic Web Conference
Innsbruck, Austria, June 3-7, 2007 - IEEE European Conference on Web Services
Zurich, Switzerland, December 4-6, 2006
Outreach
- ACTRIS Data Center, Norwegian Institute for Air Research
Kjeller, Norway, October 23-27, 2017 - ORCID and its integration in PANGAEA, GEO
Bremen, Germany, July 7, 2017 - ORCID and its integration in PANGAEA, MARUM
Bremen, Germany, June 12, 2017 - PostDoc Day, MARUM
Bremen, Germany, May 19, 2017 - THOR-ENVRIplus Bootcamp on
ORCID Integrations in Environmental Research Infrastructures
Helsinki, Finland, March 28-29, 2017 (Chair) - Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Jena, Germany, August 25, 2016. Slides - LI-COR
Berlin, Germany, July 27, 2016. Slides - PostDoc Day, MARUM
Bremen, Germany, June 1, 2016 - ICOS Carbon Portal, Lund University
Lund, Sweden, August 10-14, 2015. Slides 1, Slides 2, Slides 3 - Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, University of Adelaide
Adelaide, Australia, March 23, 2015. Slides - Integrated Carbon Observation System, University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland, December 9, 2014. Slides - Harvest Symposium, University of Eastern Finland
Kuopio, Finland, November 28, 2014. Slides - Vaisala Technology Transfer Seminar
Helsinki, Finland, October 31, 2014. Slides - SMEAR Field Station
Hyytiälä, Finland, September 10, 2014 - Distributed Information Systems Laboratory, EPFL
Lausanne, Switzerland, August 11, 2014 - MTT Agrifood Research Finland
Helsinki, Finland, April 14, 2014. Slides - Distributed Systems Laboratory, Âbo Akademi University
Turku, Finland, April 4, 2013. Slides - Aerosol Physics Group, University of Eastern Finland
Kuopio, Finland, March 21, 2013. Slides - Sino-Finnish Environmental Research Center, University of Eastern Finland
Kuopio, Finland, August 23, 2012. Slides - Environmental Informatics Seminar, University of Eastern Finland
Kuopio, Finland, March 13, 2012. Slides - Journal Club in Biogeochemistry, University of Eastern Finland
Kuopio, Finland, February 3, 2012. Slides - Sino-Finnish Environmental Research Centre, Nanjing University
Nanjing, China, October 30 - November 4, 2011. Slides - Sino-Finnish Environmental Research Centre, University of Eastern Finland
Joensuu, Finland, August 22-23, 2011. Slides - Informatics and Sustainability Group, University of Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland, August 5, 2011 - Basque Center for Climate Change
Bilbao, Spain, August 2, 2011 - Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Lugano, Switzerland, June 18, 2009. Slides - Washington Semantic Web Group
Washington DC, USA, October 16, 2008 - University of Manchester
Manchester, UK, October 23, 2007. Slides
Activities
Co-chair of the RDA IG From Observational Data to Information
Co-chair of the RDA WG Persistent Identification of Instruments
Advisory Board Environmental Informatics and Modeling
Chair of the University of Eastern Finland Doctoral Student Association (2014)
Vice chair of the University of Eastern Finland Doctoral Student Association (2013)
Member of the European Geosciences Union
Member of the International Society for Environmental Information Sciences
Member of the International Environmental Modelling & Software Society
Coursera
Getting and Cleaning Data
Jeff Leek, Johns Hopkins University, May 11, 2015
Certificate
R Programming
Roger D. Peng, Johns Hopkins University, April 04, 2015
Certificate
The Data Scientist’s Toolbox
Roger D. Peng, Johns Hopkins University, April 03, 2015
Certificate
Understanding Europe: Why It Matters and What It Can Offer You
Alberto Alemanno, HEC Paris, July 21, 2014
Certificate
The Changing Global Order
Madeleine O. Hosli, Universiteit Leiden, July 14, 2014
Certificate
Analyzing Global Trends for Business and Society
Mauro F. Guillén, University of Pennsylvania, July 2, 2014
Certificate
Practical Ethics
Peter Singer, Princeton University, June 21, 2014
Buddhism and Modern Psychology
Robert Wright, Princeton University, May 11, 2014
Moralities of Everyday Life
Paul Bloom, Yale University, March 8, 2014
Certificate
Machine Learning
Andrew Ng, Stanford University, July 2, 2012
Model Thinking
Scott E. Page, University of Michigan, April 11, 2012