Wietske Bijker focusses on monitoring systems based on remote sensing, especially for vegetated surfaces (forestry, nature conservation, agriculture, individual trees). She has an MSc in soil science of the tropics and subtropics of Wageningen University (1990) and a PhD of the same university, on a PhD thesis titled: "Radar for rain forest: A monitoring system for land cover change in the Colombian Amazon" (1997).

Early 1990, she started her career as a researcher at Wageningen University working on the improvement of a model for the growth and water-use of tropical forests. Per October 1990, she was appointed as researcher at the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands), where she continued to work as an assistant professor, first for the Division of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment (ACE) and since 2002 for the Department of Earth Observation Sciences (EOS). In 2010, ITC became a faculty of the University of Twente.

Expertise

Research skills and competences: Image classification, multi-temporal remote sensing, monitoring of vague objects and gradual changes.

Organizational skills and competences: Member of the management team of EOS Department, coordination of an MSc course, organization of short courses and modules, organization of research seminars and workshops, project coordination. Member of the Programme committee of ITC MSc course.

Teaching skills and competences: Formulate a consistent set of learning objectives and design a course. Prepare and give lectures, exercises and provide self-study materials. Guide MSc and PhD students during their research. Prepare and grade exams for ITC-wide modules.

Languages: Fluent in Dutch and English, working knowledge of Spanish, French and German.

Change detection, data integration in the Core modules of MSc course (2010-present)

Monitoring of vague objects in Image Processing in Geoinformatics specialization (2013-present)

Member of the development team for the MSc course Spatial Engineering (2015-present)

Member of the Programme Committee for education for the MSc course Geo-information science and earth observation  (2010-2016)

Course coordinator and student advisor for Geoinformatics-MSc course  (2005-2011)

Module coordinator Remote Sensing module (2002-2007), including teaching part of the course.

Timeseries analysis in advanced module of MSc course (2009-2012)

Multi-temporal remote sensing, monitoring of vague objects and gradual changes.

Supervision of MSc and PhD students in Geoinformatics 

Activities in capacity development

SMARTseeds: information services for vegetable farmers in Indonesia under the Geodata for Agriculture and Water (G4AW) programme

Roadmap for the use of geo-spatial information by the Philippines Commission on Audit (COA) (2016)

Spurring a Transformation for Agriculture through Remote Sensing (STARS) (2014-2016)

Course “Development of Evacuation Routes and Determination of Shelter Accessibility Using High Resolution Satellite Imagery” under the project “Spatial Data Management and Identification of the most Vulnerable Schools and Shelters in Dominica” (2014)

Hydrocity, RS as input for detailed models for urban flooding (2013)

Project “Boom en Beeld” (tree and image) on monitoring urban trees (2008-2011)

Project “Use of Geographical Information System for Audit of Disaster-Related Aid” for International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutes (INTOSAI), Indonesian and Dutch Supreme Audit Institutes. Develop a method and 2-weeks training for the use of GIS and RS. (2007-2008)

Course Geostatistical Methods for Environmental Monitoring and Epidemiology (Kenya, 2012)

Courses on the potential of geo-informatics to combat drought, desertification and food insecurity in Ethiopia (2003) and Mozambique (2004).