People – Merikotka

Reseach Management Group

Elias Altarriba Project manager South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences firstname.lastname@xamk.fi Elias Altarriba holds a Licentiate of Science (tech.). He has been working at the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, in the focus area of Logistics and Seafaring, since 2017. He has participated in both international and national projects (COMPLETE, COMPLETE PLUS, MEPTEK, ScarOil, SÖKÖSaimaa, SÖKÖSuomenlahti). Prior to that, Elias has worked as a teacher at the Saimaa University of Applied Sciences, as a junior researcher at the Lappeenranta University of Technology and in the technical service of an automotive import company. Elias has also recently joined the doctoral school of Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences at the University of Helsinki, as a PhD candidate.

Tommi Inkinen Professor University of Turku firstname.lastname@utu.fi Tommi Inkinen is a Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Turku. His main research interests include innovation and technology geography, maritime studies, and industrial systems. These include regional and social structuring of innovation, technology integration, regional development, and logistics of transport. He’s recent books include “Geographies of Disruption” (with Tan Yigitcanlar) by Springer (2019); and “Smart Cities and Innovative Urban Technologies” (edited with Tan Yigitcanlar and Mark Wilson) by Routledge (2021). Inkinen is a current chair of the International Geographical Union’s (IGU) Innovation, Information and Technology Commission. He is also a current member (2022–2024) of the Research Council for Culture and Society of the Academy of Finland.

Anna Kiiski Executive director Kotka Maritime Research Association anna.kiiski@merikotka.fi Anna Kiiski acts as the Executive Director of Kotka Maritime Research Center (KMRC). Anna is a long-range professional when it comes to the international RDI cooperation, particularly in topics related to maritime safety and logistics and marine environmental impacts. She has been leading and supervising preparation of several international project funding applications targeted to research, regional development, and business cooperation. She also has a long experience of fostering interactions between scientific community and society.

Sakari Kuikka Professor University of Helsinki firstname.lastname@helsinki.fi Ph.D. Sakari Kuikka works as a full professor in fisheries biology, in the University of Helsinki. He is specialized in Bayesian decision analysis and probabilistic interdisciplinary modelling of socio-biological systems. In addition to fisheries science, an important part of his research is focused on oil spill risk analysis. He is the head of Fisheries and Environmental Management Group (FEM group).

Annukka Lehikoinen Research Director Kotka Maritime Research Association annukka.lehikoinen@merikotka.fi Dr. Annukka Lehikoinen works at the Kotka Maritime Research Association (KMRA), acting as the research director of the Kotka Maritime Research Centre (KMRC). Annukka is specialised in cross-disciplinary (socio-eco-technical) systems analyses with focus in human-environment interaction and sustainable management. Since 2006, she has worked in numerous multi-disciplinary projects, applying integrative and participatory methods for knowledge co-production and evidence syntheses with research teams and stakeholders. In her work as research director, Annukka plans and coordinates activities of the KMRC researcher network, facilitating both the internal collaboration, and the network’s interaction with the stakeholders and knowledge end-users.

Mashrura Musharraf Associate professor Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Dr. Mashrura Musharraf joined the Marine Technology group at Aalto University in early 2021 as an Assistant Professor. She received her PhD (2018) and M.Eng. (2014) in Computer Engineering from Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. She has been an active researcher since 2012 with a vision to apply data mining, machine learning, and AI techniques to build and deploy human-centered systems and solutions and create a safer marine industry. Her expertise includes knowledge elicitation from subject matter experts, human performance data collection by conducting full-scale experiments in marine simulators, integration of different data types, and predictive and diagnostic data analysis using machine learning methods. The choice of the analytic tools used in her research is heavily influenced by their interpretability. As the foundations for futuristic ships are being set, her current and future research aims to achieve interpretability and transparency of the AI algorithms that would govern the decision-making in ship design and operation.

Osiris Valdez Banda Associate professor Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Osiris Valdez Banda is an Assistant Professor of Marine Technology, leading the Research Group on Safe and Efficient Marine Systems at Aalto university. His research focuses on the analysis of marine risks and safety systems engineering with applications in the concepts of smart shipping and ship winter navigation. His work focuses on the development of methods, processes and tools for modelling and analysing the risks, safety and efficiency of the entire maritime ecosystem with focus on guiding the ship design processes and the management of maritime traffic operations.

Reseacher Network

Ahmad BahooToroody Academy Research Fellow Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Since September 2020, Dr. Ahmad BahooToroody has been working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Marine and Arctic Technology Group of Aalto University, Research group on Safe and Efficient Marine Systems. With a Ph.D. in Reliability Engineering from the University of Florence (Italy), he was invited to liaise with researchers at TU Delft (The Netherlands), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway) and University of Strathclyde (United Kingdom). His PhD research focused on risk-based asset integrity modeling of the automotive process, and he completed both the comprehensive exam and oral defense with distinction. Ahmad’s research interests stand at uncertainty quantification, resilience and trustworthiness of engineering operations, condition-based maintenance optimization, and application of probabilistic methods and machine learning tools in dynamic modeling. He has been keen to pass on his knowledge and experiences through supervising the undergraduate and graduate students and advising Ph.D. candidates.

Sunil Basnet Doctoral candidate Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Sunil Basnet is a doctoral candidate at Aalto University, Department of Marine Technology. He has background in Naval Architecture with a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. The doctoral research focuses on integrating Model-Based System Engineering into the Risk management framework for complex maritime operations such as Remote Pilotage operations.

Victor Bolbot Postdoctoral Researcher Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Dr. Victor Bolbot is a post-doc researcher at the Research group on Safe Marine Systems of Aalto University. Prior to joining the group, Victor has worked as a Research Associate at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, where he also received his doctoral degree in 2020. Victor has received his M.Sc in Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 2016. During his studies as a Master and PhD student Victor has received multiple awards for his outstanding performance from distinguished organisations such as DNV, IMarEST, Limmat Stiftung, Thomaideion, TRA VISIONS 2020. Victor’s research interests focus on but are not limited to safety and cybersecurity assurance of complex and autonomous marine systems. He is currently involved in AutoMare, ECAMARIS and FinnPilot projects.

Meriam Chaal Doctoral candidate Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Meriam Chaal is a doctoral candidate at Marine Technology group of Aalto University. Her research focus is on risk management applied to autonomous ships. She received a first Master degree is Ship Machinery Operation from the Tunisian Navy in 2012 and another in Maritime Safety and Environmental Administration from the World Maritime University, Sweden in 2018. She has 5 years of experience as Engineer Officer (Seafarer) on-board large passenger ships.

Shaoqing Guo Doctoral candidate Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Shaoqing Guo is a doctoral candidate at Group on Safe and Efficient Marine Systems and Ships, Marine and Arctic Technology, Aalto University. He holds a master’s degree in Transportation Engineering. His research interests focus on maritime big data analysis and navigation safety, aiming to develop the theories of a data-driven intelligent navigation system.

Jaana Haavisto Doctoral candidate University of Helsinki firstname.lastname@helsinki.fi Jaana has a Master’s degree form University of Helsinki in environmental and natural resource economics. Currently she is working as a technical assistant in the Ecosystems and Environment Research Program at the University of Helsinki, and will be starting hers doctoral studies in the beginning of 2024. The focus of her current research is in environmental decision-making and oil spill risks. More specifically, she is focusing on the analysis of research- and policy implementation values in Bayesian networks, i.e., looking at the effect of decision uncertainty to the need for further information or policy implementation.

Miina Karjalainen RDI specialist South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences firstname.lastname@xamk.fi Miina Karjalainen (PhD, marine biology, and B.Eng, environmental engineering) works as a RDI specialist at the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences (Xamk). Her main duties are coordinating and supporting the application of international project funding with the research groups at the focus areas of Logistics and Seafaring, and Forest, the Environment and Energy. She is an environmental scientist with 15 years of experience in coordinating transnational EU-funded R&D projects at the Kotka Maritime Research Centre that focused e.g. on maritime safety, oil spill risks, maritime spatial planning, and the effects of maritime traffic to the environment. In addition, her current topics include also circular economy and sustainability solutions.

Alexandr Kondratenko Postdoctoral Researcher Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Dr. Aleksandr Kondratenko is a postdoctoral researcher at the Marine Technology research group of Aalto University (Finland), where he also received his doctoral degree in ship design. Since getting his Master’s degree in 2014 at SMTU (Russia), he worked for five years as a research engineer in R&D (KSRC, Russia), making scientific reports and research software for private and state customers. His research field includes applied optimization of ships and maritime transportation systems (e.g., for open and ice-covered waters) and studying the possible ways of ships decarbonization.

Vappu Kunnaala-Hyrkki Sustainability Coordinator South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences firstname.lastname@xamk.fi Vappu Kunnaala-Hyrkki (M.Sc. (Admin.)) works as a RDI Specialist at South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences (Xamk). She coordinates and supports the application of international project funding. She has research background in the field of maritime safety and has focused especially on pilotage and corporate social responsibility aspects.

Cong Liu Doctoral candidate Aalto University firstname.1.lastname@aalto.fi Cong Liu is a doctoral candidate studying at Marine Technology Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aalto University. The main task of his work focuses on intelligent winter navigation. Big data analytics and machine learning methods are implemented. His research aims to help mariners and maritime management authorities better understand the winter operations and support the development of intelligent decision-making system for winter navigation.

Lianliang Lu Postdoctoral Researcher University of Helsinki firstname.lastname@helsinki.fi Dr. Liangliang Lu works as a postdoctoral researcher in Aalto University and University of Helsinki. He obtained doctoral degree in Marine and Arctic Technology from Aalto university and master degrees in Maritime Engineering from both Aalto University and Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He has some working experience as a naval architect in shipbuilding and design in Shanghai after bachelor degree and as an ice engineer in TOTAL in Paris after master degree. His research interests are on maritime risk management especially in ice conditions, including traffic analysis, oil spill and response modelling, and ice loads. He is currently involved in CBC SIMREC project focusing on accidents and oil spills in extreme conditions and LRF CEPOLAR project focusing on scenario-based risk management for ships in polar waters.

Emilia Luoma Project researcher Kotka Maritime Research Association firstname.lastname@merikotka.fi Dr. Emilia Luoma works as a project researcher in Kotka Maritime Research Association (KMRA). She has worked in many international, multi-disciplinary projects which have considered the sustainability of maritime traffic. Her research has focused especially on developing sustainability through systems thinking. She is specialized in working with stakeholders and analyzing their views and thoughts using interviews, the conceptual mapping and probabilistic elicitation of causalities as the methods.

Piia Nygren Project specialist Kotka Maritime Research Association piia.nygren@merikotka.fi

Adanna Nkiruka Okonkwo Doctoral candidate Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Adanna Nkiruka Okonkwo obtained her masters’ degree in Maritime Energy Management from World Maritime University, Sweden. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies in the Marine and Arctic Technology Group at Aalto University. Her Research is centered on using multiple machine learning models for predicting ship performance on ice-infested water with focus on Energy Efficiency Optimization.

Eunice Olanyi Postdoctoral Researcher University of Turku firstname.lastname@utu.fi Eunice Olanyi has a Ph.D. in Business and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Department of Geography and Geology. Her research activities include maritime business, transport economics, maritime capital investments analysis, financial engineering, modeling methodologies for value networks, data analysis, as well as sustainable strategies for international coalitions & business alliances. She has managed and participated in different successful project implementations across Europe, some in partnership with non-EU and African countries.

Douglas Owen Doctoral candidate Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Doug holds a Masters degree in psychology from University of Otago (NZ) and is currently studying for his doctorate in resilience of autonomous systems in maritime at Aalto University. He is also contributing to an autonomous ship navigation technology design research project from the human-machine-teaming perspective. Doug has over 20 years of professional experience as a human factors specialist in many high-hazard industries including aviation, nuclear, maritime, defence, rail, materials handling, infrastructure. He has worked as an internal specialist and consultant, also collaborating on international research projects and teaching at university level. Doug blends advanced theory with practical application and brings a holistic, human-centered, and evidence approach to his work. He has expertise in human factors, resilience, human behaviour, psychology, ergonomics, user-centred design, risk management, incident investigation and incident data analysis.

Rohit Ranjan Research assistant Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Rohit Ranjan is a research assistant at Aalto University’s Marine and Arctic Technology group, working under Professor Mashrura Musharraf. He is an undergraduate student from IIT Kharagpur, India, majoring in computer science. Rohit’s research interests revolve around the interdisciplinary applications of AI, specifically in vessel automation. Currently, he is involved in a literature review to explore the potential of explainable AI in this domain.

Vesa Tuomala Project manager South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences firstname.lastname@xamk.fi Vesa Tuomala works as a Project Manager in the logistics and seafaring RDI unit of the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences (Xamk). He has a broad experience and career in the ICT sector earlier, and over a decade of maritime safety and security as an officer and seafarer onboard passenger and cargo vessels. For the last three years, he has been working with the sustainability and cybersecurity of ports and maritime industry, pedagogy of maritime simulators, and the future of autonomous vessels. Vesa has education in leadership and project management from Henley Management College (MBA), degree of Master Mariner from Xamk, and studies in cybersecurity. He has publications on sustainability, safety and security in the port and maritime industry, IoT and maritime cybersecurity, and oil recovery.

Sami Vikkula Doctoral candidate University of Helsinki firstname.lastname@helsinki.fi Sami Vikkula has M.Sc degrees in both business and environmental sciences. He has nearly ten years of work experience in the corporate sector, in financial management and business development roles. Currently he is doing his doctoral studies regarding environmental protection, environmental risk analysis and management. In his thesis work, Sami is developing a model for predicting the effects of oil spills on fish stocks, including economic indicators of impacts. In this work he applies Bayesian inference and probability calculus.

Mingyang Zhang Postdoctoral Researcher Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Mingyang Zhang is a postdoctoral researcher from the Marine and Arctic Technology research group at Aalto University. His primary focus lies in ship safety and sustainable maritime transportation systems, utilizing emerging technologies such as AI/ML/DL. The objective of his work is to contribute to the development of intelligent decision-making systems that hold the potential to become critical enablers for future intelligent ship operations or sustainable maritime transportation systems. Additionally, he is keenly interested in implementing collaborative ship control and ship motions through the application of big data analytics and DL methods in ship operations modelling. Currently, he is actively involved in the RETROFIT55 project, collaborating with stakeholders from industry, academia, and policymakers in the maritime industry.

Mahsa Khorasani Postdoctoral Researcher Aalto University firstname.lastname@aalto.fi Dr. Mahsa Khorasani has recently joined Aalto University’s Marine Technology research group for a postdoctoral position. With a Ph.D. in computer science and engineering, Mahsa brings interdiciplinary experience and expertise in applying machine learning, data mining, and artificial intelligence in various real world problems like natural language processing, social media mining, and computational psychology. Motivated by a commitment to global well-being, Mahsa aspires to leverage her background in applied machine learning and AI to contribute to the field of marine navigation.