About my work and me

Spatial Data Science, Earth Observation & Geoanalysis

Welcome at jakob.schwalb-willmann.de, a page about what I do and what I am interested in. I am a spatial data scientist, specialized in Earth observation and geo-spatial data analysis. Professionally, I am passionate about tapping into new data sources that are currently underutilized in Earth observation research, integrating them with existing data and, in joint analysis, finding patterns previously undetectable. For this, I am developing and applying machine and deep learning techniques.

For example, I am jointly analyzing movement tracking data and temporally synchronous environmental data acquired by satellites that orbit the Earth in space. This research primarily aims to utilize animals as environmental agents by letting a computer learn patterns in the interaction of animal movement behaviors and prevalent environmental conditions to predict such environmental conditions from movement data.

Currently, I am working at the Earth Observation Research Cluster of the University of Wuerzburg, where I am part of the UAS Team. There, we fly drones equipped with various sensors for different research applications, including monitoring forests across Germany, detecting terrestrial plastics in agricultural fields and more. In addition, I have been teaching students in the international EAGLE MSc. programme (Earth observation and Geoanalysis) and the Biosciences MSc. programme (Ecology) at University of Würzburg since 2019. In cooperation with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Max Planck Institue for Animal Behavior, I am conducting my PhD research on the potentials of animal-environment interactions for remote sensing research.

Beyond this privately maintained page, you can find me on the web here, here and here or on Twitter and GitHub. Thank you for stopping by!

Last updated: 2024-07-10