The UNIGIS International Association (UIA) announces the winners of its Academic Excellence Prize 2016. The Prize, initiated in 2008, is presented to the students submitting the best (English language) MSc thesis during the academic year and are nominated by their UNIGIS sites.
This year the competition was extremely tight with seven excellent high quality MSc theses being shortlisted by the Review Panel. In the end the panel decided to make three awards.
The winner of the Academic Excellence Prize for 2016 is Tim Hernon (UNIGIS UK). His thesis
showed a novel approach to extract urban land use data from Volunteered Geographic Information (in this case, OpenStreetMap data), successfully tested and discussed in detail for a case study in Nottingham, UK.
The first runner up is Nathan Patrick Novak (UNIGIS USC)who proposed an elaborate modelling of Sperm Whale habitats within the Central Gulf of Alaska, using a range of geospatial data.
Irene Fellner (UNIGIS Salzburg) is awarded the third place. In her thesis she presents an innovative way to implement the concept of landmarks in indoor navigation, using a case study at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration campus.
The Review Panel would like to commend these individuals and the four other theses for the high quality of the work.