Speakers

Martin Roth has been a district manager in the Lake Constance district for 25 years. He is responsible for a district with seven municipal forests and almost 700 private forest owners, who together manage around 1,500 parcels of land. One of the most challenging aspects of his work is dealing with the massive liquidation of stands due to calamities, especially in small private forests.

Roth relies on innovative digital technologies and was involved in the development of Wood.In.Vision. He also lectures at Rottenburg University of Applied Sciences and the University of Freiburg, where he teaches practical applications of digital technologies in forestry.

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).

Dr. Peter Biber is Academic Director at the Chair of Tree Growth and Wood Physiology at the Technical University of Munich. His scientific interests lie in the area of forest growth, particularly considering tree-stand-operation levels.

The utilization of scientific insights and the best possible exploitation of available data for practical application have always been of great importance to him. In the German-speaking world, Peter Biber is one of the pioneers in the field of management-oriented forest growth modeling.

Dr. Flaminia Catalli holds a PhD in geophysics and has a diverse academic and professional background. For nearly a decade, she conducted research in seismology, focusing on the development of physical, statistical, and hybrid models for earthquake prediction. Transitioning into data science, she applied her expertise in numerical programming and statistical problem-solving across various fields, including finance and environmental projects.

Currently, she works on developing tools for multi-criteria decision analysis, with a strong emphasis on forest management and climate resilience, leveraging her deep belief in the power of probabilistic methods to address complex decision-making challenges under uncertainty..

Dr. Daniel Doktor leads the working group ‚Land-Cover & Dynamics‘ at the 
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ. His research focuses 
on the detection and evaluation of climate effects and land-use change on terrestrial vegetation. This includes i) the use and analysis of optical-reflective time-series of satellite data to derive forest condition, plant traits and ecosystem services and ii) the derivation of land-use, land-use intensity and habitats using data science methods.

Part of his work are also the acquisition of remotely sensed hyperspectral data accompanied by respective trait measurements and in-situ vegetation records. The aim is to evaluate links between land-use intensity / biodiversity and plant traits.

Philipp Eisnecker has been working as research assistant at the Forest Research Institute in Baden-Württemberg in the Biometry and Computer Science working group since 2022. He is currently developing an area-wide timber stock model that integrates aerial survey data and inventory data. In his previous work, he has dealt with the evaluation of forests as carbon sinks and the recording of forest damage using satellite data.

His work focuses on the combination of remote sensing and modeling, data validation, drone flights and the integration of research data into forestry practice, e.g. forest inventories. He holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences with a specialization in environmental modelling and geoinformation systems.

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.

Dr. Julian Frey has been working at the Chair of Forest Growth and Dendroecology at the University of Freiburg since 2019 and is currently working on the remote sensing of forests using terrestrial laser scanning in the WaldAgil research project. His main research interest lies in the AI-based derivation of important forest parameters directly from LiDAR sensor data. 

In recent years, his work has focused on the quantification of forest structures for biodiversity research, the sensor fusion of thermal and LiDAR data and the highly accurate modelling of light interception in forests.

Dr. Chris Geiger has been working in research and development at HSM Hohenloher Spezial-Maschinenbau GmbH since 2022. His expertise ranges from software and electronics development to the use of artificial intelligence for forestry machines.

Dr. Geiger studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Munich and completed his doctorate on assistance systems for forestry machinery at the Mobile Machinery Division of the KIT. A current research focus is the digitalization of forestry machinery with the inclusion of AI systems.

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.

Coming from a background of mathematics and computer science, Dr. Konstantin Gregor received his PhD from TUM in 2024 in the field Land Surface – Atmosphere Interactions.

He now works as a Postdoc in the same group. His research focus lies on using global vegetation models and climate models in combination with robust multi-criteria optimization, to develop strategies for European forests that are simultaneously optimized for climate change adaptation, mitigation, resource provision, and ecosystem services.

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).

Niklas Jaggy is a researcher at the Chair of Remote Sensing at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU). He works in the earth observation sub-project of the bidt project ROOT for near-real-time observation of forest dynamics and biodiversity.

The main task of his research includes the development of an earth observation process chain for the near-real-time detection of disturbances in Bavarian forests and the differentiation between standing deadwood and clear-cut areas. This includes the development of different methodological approaches as well as a resource-efficient implementation in high-performance computing environments.

Taimur Khan is a Data Scientist at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research – UFZ. As part of the Vegetation and Macroecology and Land Cover/Dynamics working groups, his current work focuses on applying deep learning techniques to ecological challenges, including the DeepTrees project for spatio-temporal tree inventory, the BioDT project for dynamic digital biodiversity twinning, and the Forest Resilience Index project for monitoring forest resilience with remote sensing.

Taimur also regularly conducts drone flights for vegetation monitoring and mapping, integrating drone-based multispectral imagery into his workflows.

With a background in geosciences, physics, remote sensing and data science, Taimur is dedicated to integrating advanced computational methods with remote sensing technologies to promote sustainable forest management.

Katja Kröner studied environmental sciences with a focus on modeling at the University of Freiburg and has been a doctoral student at the Chair of Forest Growth and Dendroecology since 2024.

Her research focuses on the use of remote sensing data to study individual tree growth. The focus is on recording detailed three-dimensional structures and combining them with growth parameters as well as integrating them into forest growth models.

Dr. Nina Krüger is project manager and expert for 3D point clouds and remote sensing at M.O.S.S. Computer Grafik Systeme GmbH. After completing her doctorate in the field of remote sensing and forestry applications in 2019, she gained practical experience at M.O.S.S.

She leads scientific projects and projects in the fields of remote sensing, nationwide change detection, 3D building modeling, forestry, data management and the management of nationwide geotopographic data sets.

Within the InGeoDTM project, she deals with the interface between digitization in the planning and construction process and the conversion of the energy supply in Germany to renewable energies, which significantly affects the municipalities and requires interdisciplinary cooperation between all parties involved from planning to the approval process.

Johannes Mohr is a PhD student and research assistant at the Chair of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management in Mountain Landscapes at the Technical University of Munich. After studying mathematics at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, he studied forestry in Freising.

His research focuses on the economic impact of disturbances in forests and the evaluation of different management strategies with regard to their effect on the resistance of forests to disturbances. He combines remote sensing methods and forest ecosystem models to investigate both past and future effects of uneven-aged management strategies.

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.

Visweshwar Arulmozhi Nambi holds a Master’s degree in Geoinformatics from the University of Münster. He is currently a Scientific assistant (Remote Sensing Expert) at the Hessisches Landesamt für Naturschutz, Umwelt und Geologie (HLNUG).

With a strong passion for integrating remote sensing with machine learning techniques, Visweshwar works to tackle complex challenges in fields such as forestry, nature conservation etc. One of his main projects at HLNUG, BuWaL-Hessen, aims to support the terrestrial mapping of Natura 2000 sites in Hessen by leveraging remote sensing to optimize nature conservation efforts.

Richard L. Peters is an Associate Professor leading the Tree Growth and Wood Physiology Group at the Technical University of Munich. He studied biology at Utrecht University and earned his PhD (summa cum laude) from the University of Basel in collaboration with the Swiss WSL in 2018.

Peters combines dendrochronology with mechanistic models and high-resolution sensors to study tree water use and wood formation. His research focuses on species-specific drought responses and forest resilience, applying insights to forest monitoring and management.

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. Peter Saiger-Bonnas studied cartography in Karlsruhe and completed his doctorate at the University of Potsdam in collaboration with the Planetary Research Department of the DLR in Berlin.

Since 2008, he has held various technical positions at Esri Germany, including Senior Consultant and Technical Advisor. In these positions, he was responsible for projects and customers in the forestry sector.

Dr. Peter Saiger-Bonnas is leading the “Imagery and Analytics Solutions” team since 2019. Together with his team, he develops innovative technological solutions based on Esri technology to make remote sensing and real-time data usable for applications in the forestry sector.

Christopher Schiller is a phd student at the Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics working group of the Institute of Geographical Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin. Within the Future Forest project he is working on the detection of forest damage using artificial intelligence (AI) and Sentinel-2 time series.

From 2015 to 2020, he studied geoecology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) with a focus on vegetation. There he gained his first experience in the field of remote sensing and AI.

Lennart Schinke has been a research assistant in the “Environment and Digitalization” department at the Institute for Human-Machine Interaction (MMI) at RWTH Aachen University since 2022. He previously studied mechanical engineering with a focus on mechatronics at the University of Paderborn and holds a Master of Science degree.

At the MMI, he is particularly concerned with the digitalization of forestry in research and development. One focus is on topics related to data exchange, e.g. data trustees, data rooms and the Internet of Things.

Janusch Vajna-Jehle is a PhD candidate at the University of Freiburg’s Department for Sensor-based Geoinformatics and works as the lead developer for deadtrees.earth.

His work focuses on creating platforms that connect geospatial data with practical applications. Previously, he contributed to projects like WaldKlick and SuMo-Rhine, applying his skills in geospatial analysis and user-centric application design. Janusch is committed to making environmental data more accessible and useful for diverse users.

A scientist and educator driven by a passion for the use of remote sensing techniques in vegetation monitoring, especially for agricultural monitoring, irrigation management and crop yield prediction at multiple scales. He is currently head of the Institute of Geomatics at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU).

He has been involved in previous studies on forest type classification, net primary productivity modelling and has co-ordinated a project to develop an Augmented Reality (AR) framework to bring remote sensing based products to the field via AR.

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.