Speakers

Prof. Rupert Seidl (*1979) researches ecosystem dynamics and utilises his findings to support sustainable forestry. His work has a strong emphasis on the disturbance and resilience of forest ecosystems.

Prof. Seidl combines a variety of methods – from empirical field research and experiments to remote sensing and simulation modelling – to understand the changes in ecosystems across space and time. Based on these findings, he develops management concepts for the sustainable provision of ecosystem services and the preservation of biodiversity in a changing world.

Prof. Seidl is one of the 1% most cited scientists in his field and was listed by Reuters among the top 100 of the 1000 most influential climate scientists worldwide. He is co-author of the current Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Prof. Dr. Fabian Faßnacht has been Professor of Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics at the Institute of Geographical Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin since 1 April 2022.

His research carries an emphasis on the application of remote sensing data to understand ecological patterns and processes of vegetation ecosystems and the development of workflows for quantifying and mapping forest characteristics using remote sensing data.

Before his appointment, Prof. Faßnacht worked as a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Geography and Geoecology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Richard Georgi studied forestry in Tharandt and spent 10 years as a research assistant at the Chair of Forest Conservation at TU Dresden.

He has been working at OGF GmbH since 2020, where he has been a managing partner since early 2024. His focus is on the digitalisation of forest inventories, in which modern drone technology with LiDAR sensors is used to develop precise and sustainable solutions for forest management.

Frank Heinze has been project coordinator of the infrastructure project ‘Competence Centre Forest and Wood 4.0’ since 2018.

He studied electrical engineering in Paderborn and at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, USA, and business administration at the University of Hagen, and holds degrees in engineering and industrial engineering.

He has been involved in research, education, and software development in the fields of engineering, simulation systems and virtual reality, particularly for manufacturing technology and forestry for over 20 years. Starting in 1996 at the Institute for Robotics Research at TU Dortmund University and since 2005 at the RIF Institute for Research and Transfer e.V., Dortmund.

Martin Hoppen has been Head of the new ‘Environment and Digitalisation’ department at the Institute for Man-Machine Interaction (MMI) at RWTH Aachen University since September 2022.

Martin Hoppen has been working on the digitalisation of the forestry industry in research and development for over 15 years. The focus of his work is on data management and data modelling as well as Industry 4.0 and data space technologies for the forestry industry (Wald und Holz 4.0).

Nancy Müller is a specialist for digitalisation in the public relations department of Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e.V. (“Agency for Renewable Resources”) (FNR).

After completing her master’s degree in forestry in 2020, she gained practical experience in the forestry service at the AELF Kempten. At the FNR, she has been organising and moderating the “Digitalisation of Forestry and Wood” roundtable for the last three years.

Her role consists of facilitating networking among stakeholders, identifying synergies, and promote collaboration for innovative solutions. She utilises her overview to ensure that all participants work together to create solutions for existing challenges and make progress in digitalisation.

Dr. Werner Rammer is a Senior Scientist at the Chair of Ecosystem Dynamics at the Technical University of Munich. He develops and uses forest ecosystem models to analyse the effects of climate change, disturbances and forest management. He is also a pioneer in the application of artificial intelligence in ecosystem research.

His research focuses on ecosystem modelling, artificial intelligence/deep learning, software development, the effects of climate change, ecosystem services, and forest management.

Thorsten Reitz is the founder of wetransform GmbH.

After studying media informatics, he worked at Fraunhofer IGD from 2004 to 2012 as a research assistant and later as head of department, where he played a key role in data harmonisation projects such as HUMBOLDT, eSDI- NET+, CityServer3D and urbanAPI. Through this work, he gained broad knowledge of INSPIRE and other geodata standards. He is also the “father” and first developer of hale»studio.

From 2012 to 2015, he was Head of Product Engineering at the Esri R&D Centre Zurich, where he was responsible for the implementation of products such as ArcGIS for 3D Cities, ArcGIS Scene Services and CityEngine, as well as HR and other cross-divisional tasks.

Dr. Lars Waser, is a senior researcher at WSL with more than two decades of expertise in remote sensing with focus on forests. His main research focuses on spatially estimating forest parameters (area, structure, tree species, biomass, forest edge etc.) at different scales (with a focus on countrywide products) and the appropriate validation of remote sensing-based forest products.

He leads national and international projects, and programs, and supervises master and PhD students. He’s associate editor of three Q1 remote sensing journals and member of several scientific and steering committees and associations. He is actively engaged in bringing together applied research and forest practitioners and has achieved important milestones in this regard.

Prof. Dr. M. Ziesak is the managing partner of iFOS GmbH, which he founded in 2018. With its expertise in forestry, iFOS GmbH combines AI + programming, electrical engineering + embedded systems, and remote sensing + GIS.

Additionally, Dr. Ziesak is Professor of Forest Engineering at the School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL in Zollikofen near Bern, Switzerland.