Casper is an industrial PhD at the engineering consultancy NIRAS and Aalborg University, working on developing tools and methods that utilise Earth Observation (EO) and Deep Learning to support the Sustainable Development Goals. The topic of the PhD came out of a personal interest in applying innovative technologies to global development challenges. Casper is a part of the Mapping and GIS Department at NIRAS, where he has worked on a diverse range of projects in numerous roles. He holds an AP. in Multimedia Design and Communication, a BSc. in Surveying, Planning and Land Management and an MSc. in Geoinformatics from Aalborg University in Copenhagen. His MSc. thesis was on the use of EO in monitoring compliance with the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy.
For most of the PhD, Casper has lived in Oxford, supporting the close collaboration between NIRAS and Oxford Policy Management as the EO expert and industrial researcher on the “Savings at the Frontier” project. He currently serves as a quality expert on the EU Commission’s Technical Assistance Facility for EO projects in Latin America as well as the EO and GIS expert on the $105 million Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) project for Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. His previous work includes a feasibility study on new land management measures in Uganda – undertaken while working at the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development in Kampala, a study on using Sentinel imagery to detect invasive plant species in Denmark, as well as the creation of the WebGIS platform underpinning the coverage maps of the largest telecommunication service provider in Denmark.
Casper’s research area is the application of EO and Deep Learning in service of the Sustainable Development Goals by facilitating data-informed geospatial decision-making. To that end, he has developed a software toolbox – Buteo and two distinct sets of Graphical User Interfaces to support the processes. He has published articles on estimating structural characteristics using satellite data, predicting population using data from the Copernicus Programme, forecasting urban growth using time series of satellite imagery and cellular automata, using geospatial analysis to support Financial Inclusion, and predicting the presence of protected dikes and walls using Deep Learning. He won the FIG Young Surveyor award, the CLGE Student Geoinformatics award, and the second-place award in the Integrated Geomatics track at the ESA/GSA Space week. He is a guest lecturer at multiple universities in Remote Sensing and has supervised multiple master thesis projects and interns at NIRAS.
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