Hey, I'm Tom! I am a master's student of Earth Surface and Water at Utrecht University, where I am following the track Geohazards and Earth Observation. This track suits me perfectly, since I find both subjects super interesting, partly because research in both subjects is socially very relevant. I have just finished my master's thesis on the influence of soil properties on debris flow erosion, and now I am going to focus on the other part of my track via an internship, namely remote sensing.
I get to do this through my internship at NEO BV! I am working here at NEO within a larger project. In this project, we are going to use hyperspectral data to investigate different properties of an area. My task within this project is to map soil moisture in remote areas. A good indication of soil moisture helps, for example, in estimating the passability of unpaved roads, the danger of a drought for vegetation and crops, and how much rainwater can be collected in an area.
For this, I will analyse hyperspectral satellite images from the new PRISMA satellite with machine learning algorithms. Furthermore, I will also investigate to what extent this workflow can be automated. Both working with hyperspectral data and working with machine learning algorithms are still relatively new to me, but fortunately I am getting good guidance from NEO and am already learning a lot. All in all, it is a fun, challenging project that I will be working on with great enthusiasm!