Every year, the UNIGIS International Association (UIA) awards the Academic Excellence Prize to students having submitted the best MSc theses during the previous academic year, accepted for graduation at one of the UNIGIS partner universities worldwide.
In this year’s competition five excellent, high-quality MSc theses were considered by the Review Panel. The panel decided to make three awards, including one winner and two joint runners-up of the Academic Excellence Prize for 2019:
Cass E. Kalinski, UNIGIS USA, was awarded the first place for his Master thesis “Building Better Species Distribution Models with Machine Learning: Assessing the Role of Covariate Scale and Tuning in Maxent Models”.
Two manuscript-based theses have been chosen for the second place:
- Diogo Cardoso, UNIGIS Portugal, thesis “A geographically weighted regression approach to investigate air pollution effect on lung cancer: A case study in Portugal” , and
- Selina Studer, UNIGIS Salzburg, thesis “Replication of the Question-based Spatial Computing Approach Experiences and Suggestions for Further Developments”
The Review Panel would like to commend these individuals and the two other theses for the high quality of the work.
UIA is proud to present this prize to the authors of one of the many outstanding MSc thesis submitted every year, distinguishing and honouring these individuals for an excellent academic achievement! All winners also receive a free ticket to GI Forum, held 7-10 July 2020 in Salzburg, www.gi-forum.org.