Monika Kuffer

Monika Kuffer is a Full Professor at the University of Twente's Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), holding additional roles as Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management. She leads research in urban remote sensing, deprived area monitoring, and sustainable urban development. Her work integrates spatial statistics, machine learning, and citizen science to inform inclusive city planning.

Education:

• PhD in Human Geography & GIS from the University of Twente
• MSc in Human Geography (TU Munich)
• MSc in Geographic Information Science (University of London)

Research Interests:

• Urban Remote Sensing
• Slum and Deprivation Mapping
• Climate Adaptation Strategies
• Citizen Science for Urban Inequalities
• Earth Observation Policy Support

Articles Trends: Recent work emphasizes multi-city climate adaptation analyses, thermal inequality assessments in African slums, and scalable deprivation modelling frameworks like IDEAMAPS. Projects like ONEKANA and NightWatch highlight fusion of EO data with community-driven methods.

Awards:

• 2022 EO4all Prize for innovative Earth Observation applications

Advising & Grants: Supervised 3 PhD/MSc projects. Active in global initiatives like the EU's Knowledge Centre on EO and the UN's SDG frameworks. Leads datasets on deprivation (e.g., IDeAMapSudan).

Labs/Teams: Core member of ITC's Urban Remote Sensing and GeoAI teams. Collaborates with the Digital Society Institute for interdisciplinary urban research.