Väiski defended his PhD thesis – Grant McKenzie as opponent

Tuomas Väisänen aka “Väiski” successfully defended his PhD thesis last Friday!

The defence took place on the Friday 10^th of November 2023 with Grant McKenzie, Associate Professor of Spatial Data Science from McGill University, Canada as the opponent.

See Väiski’s thesis “Diversity of places and people: Using big data to understand languages and activities across geographical space” here.

Earlier in the week, we had the privilege of hosting the opponent McKenzie at our premises and getting to know each other and our respective research groups’ works better, which sparked many new ideas.

The event-packed week culminated with Väiski’s defence and his lovely Karonkka party that followed in the evening.

Finally, after a long and exciting week, our happy new doctor was sent to home with celebrations to enjoy his wonderful achievement.

Hooray & hugs to Väiski! 🥳🤗

And many thanks also to the opponent McKenzie for visiting us and acting as the excellent counterpart for Väiski! 🤗

Enjoy the photos below, taken by Tatu Savolainen, Teuvo Väisänen and Grant McKenzie.

Väiski calling for the critical comments.

Väiski’s lectio praecursoria was excellent. See the separate post!

Proud supervisors Olle Järv and Tuuli Toivonen with Väiski and Grant.  Supervisor Tuomo Hiippala could not make it to the pic!

Digital Geography Lab say cheers to Väiski!

A well deserved karonkka group hug!

The day after was officially the most grey day of the year. Certainly didn’t feel like that despite the weather. Photo: Grant McKenzie.

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The Digital Geography Lab is an interdisciplinary research team focusing on spatial Big Data analytics for fair and sustainable societies at the University of Helsinki.