Francis Oloo PhD

PhD Viva, University of Salzburg: Francis Oloo
07 Feb 2019

On Thursday 7 Feb I had the pleasure of travelling to the Z_GIS Centre of Competence for Geoinformatics at the University of Salzburg to examine a PhD thesis by Francis Oloo. The other examiner was Andreas Koch and it was chaired by Josef Strobl.

Francis’ thesis is entitled Sensor-driven, spatially explicit agent-based models and develops methods that can use techniques like genetic algorithms to calibrate agent based models dynamically. The work is applied to modelling animal movements, particularly the behaviour of birds, using GPS traces from real bird flights from https://www.movebank.org (the data on homing pigeons look particularly useful).

Francis has already published four excellent papers about the work:

  • Wallentin, G., & Oloo, F. (2016). A Model-sensor Framework to Predict Homing Pigeon Flights. GI Forum 1:41-52.
  • Oloo, F., & Wallentin, G. (2017). An Adaptive Agent-Based Model of Homing Pigeons: A Genetic Algorithm Approach. International Journal of Geo-Information 6(1):27
  • Oloo, F., Safi, K., & Aryal, J. (2018). Predicting Migratory Corridors of White Storks, Ciconia ciconia, to Enhance Sustainable Wind Energy Planning: A Data-Driven Agent-Based Model. Sustainability 10(5):1470.
  • Oloo, F. (2018). Mapping Rural Road Networks From Global Positioning System (GPS) Trajectories of Motorcycle Taxis in Sigomre Area, Siaya County, Kenya. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 7(8): 309.