UCL CEGE Geospatial MSc graduate Noemi Roecklinger wins RSPSoc prize for best Master’s thesis

Having graduated from UCL in 2018, Noemi now works for leading global design company Arup as a Geospatial Data Scientist. During her time as a Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE) student, Noemi was actively engaged in the department’s Geomatics section, and alongside her studies worked as a teaching assistant for a Master’s level module in image processing and analysis, and for a surveying and geomatics field course.     

Geoinformatics for Building Information Modelling MSc Programme Director, and Noemi's dissertation supervisor, Dr Jan Boehm, noted how 

““Noemi has been an outstanding graduate of the Geoinformatics for BIM MSc at UCL. She graduated with a Distinction and was awarded Dean’s List honours for outstanding academic performance.”

Noemi’s extracurricular dedication to broaden her knowledge of laser scanning, photogrammetry and the use of new technologies not taught as part of her degree, such as machine learning and deep learning, led to a profound in-depth understanding of her wider subject, which in turn influenced the success of her thesis. 

Dr Boehm adds “Noemi’s thesis, ‘Automated urban scene analysis from mobile laser scanning point clouds using machine learning techniques’, displays unique insight into pointwise classification techniques, a thorough understanding of machine leaning techniques, and contributes comprehensively to the current body of research in the Geomatics community.” 

Noemi comments how Dr Boehm's "background in both image understanding and robotics inspired me to look into how we can use cutting-edge machine learning techniques for geospatial applications. Having worked as a surveyor prior to my Master’s, I have always been interested in laser scanning. My research looks into training an algorithm to 'see' and 'understand' 3D scenes. It is easy for us to identify a tree, but actually quite complex to teach a model to detect them.”

Given the academic rigour and potential industrial application of Noemi’s work, it was decided to nominate her for a prestigious Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society award. 

The Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society (RSPSoc) is an international charity which aims to educate and inform both its members and the public about photogrammetry and remote sensing, and their application to areas such as industry, research and education. 

Amongst other awards, prizes for the best MSc and PhD students within the field are presented at the end of the RSPSoc annual conference. 2019’s conference and awards ceremony took place at Satellite Applications Catapult in Harwell, Oxfordshire, where Noemi’s thesis was confirmed as the best in its field. The 2019 RSPSoc student awards were supported by the UK Space Agency.        

Noemi and Dr Boehm were both delighted with the RSPSoc award success, and the acknowledgment it gives to the hard work that went into Noemi's research. Grateful for all the opportunities and support she encountered during her time at UCL, Noemi notes how she

““very much enjoyed my dissertation time at UCL, and was consequently very proud to receive this RSPSoc accolade. I am the first in my wider family to go to university, and I’m so thankful that my family have always supported and encouraged me. My mum, Brigitte, even came all the way from Austria for the awards ceremony, which was a big surprise.”

Geoinformatics for Building Information Modelling MSc has recently been relaunched, along with all CEGE’s other Geospatial Sciences MSc programmes, which are taught by UCL Geomatics staff. From 2020 onwards, students can look forward to studying Geospatial Sciences (Building Information Modelling and Surveying) MSc, with current modules covering areas such as data analysis, programming and reality capture. For the latest programme information, please see the link below. 

From everyone at CEGE, congratulations to Noemi for this outstanding achievement. 

With thanks to Dr Jan Boehm and Ms Noemi Roecklinger.

Links 

Please note, some links lead to external sites. 

• Geospatial Sciences MSc routes 
• UCL Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering 
• UCL Geomatics 
• RSPSoc website 

Image 

• Caption: Noemi and her mum Brigitte with the RSPSoc award.