Tiejun is an Associate Professor in Ecological Remote Sensing at the University of Twente. He received his Ph.D. degree in Spatial Ecology from Wageningen University in 2009 and the MSc degree in GIS and Remote Sensing from the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) in 2003. His career includes 12 years working in the area of nature conservation before moving to university work. He teaches postgraduate coursework in Remote Sensing and Statistics.

His research focuses on biodiversity mapping and monitoring using satellite remote sensing, ecological niche modeling, and artificial intelligence techniques. He is particularly interested in how ecologically relevant information can be extracted from remotely sensed data at different spatial and temporal scales, and how the information can help us better understand the impacts of land use and climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and how this knowledge can be used for guiding biodiversity conservation, and thereby achieving sustainable development goals.

He has successfully supervised 17 Ph.D. students and 35 Master’s students. He is currently supervising 9 Ph.D. students. He also supervises Ph.D. student in collaboration with the University of Oxford. In addition, he is regularly invited to serve as a member of doctoral degree examination committee in Belgium and in South Africa.