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Staff Profile

Dr Maria-Valasia Peppa

Lecturer in Geospatial Engineering

  • Personal Website: https://linktr.ee/mvpeppa
  • Address: School of Engineering
    Room G.16
    Cassie Building
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU
    UK
Background

Background 

Land surveying engineer with comprehensive expertise in integrating multimodal and multiscale geospatial data and Earth Observations from various sources (satellite, UAV/drone, terrestrial and airborne laser scanning, GNSS/GPS, Total station, CCTV cameras etc.) as well as applying photogrammetric, remote sensing, and computer vision techniques to real-world problems relating to the natural and built environment. Member of the Newcastle Earth Observations laboratory (NEOLab) within the School's Geospatial Engineering Group. Member of the UKRI GCRF Water Security and Sustainable Development Hub.

More information about my ongoing research can be found here: https://linktr.ee/mvpeppa 

Publications

Published papers are available via the Newcastle University ePrints service as well as in ORCID and Scopus.

Highlights

  • Collaborative workshop with external attendees from Ethiopia and Colombia, delivering theory and practice on Geospatial data capture and analysis – Towards water quality mapping;
  • NERC-awarded Public Engagement project: Empowering Future Environmental Changemakers Through Science (EFECTS); 
  • Webinar about my research in photogrammetric computer vision given at the Universidad Technologica de Bolivar, Cartagena, Colombia;
  • Outreach activities promoting STEM and geospatial engineering for tacking climate change to young learners in the North East of England.

Qualifications

September 2017 - October 2013

Awarded PhD in Geomatics, School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK, “Morphology-based landslide monitoring system with a UAV”.

Aim: To investigate the potential of a consumer grade UAV system to provide accurate time series of 3D landslide information in the absence of physically established control points. A morphological-based strategy was developed by applying surface morphological attributes in combination with the scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) algorithm to generate pseudo control information and co-register multi-epoch UAV datasets for landslide monitoring.

Supervisors: Prof J.Mills, Prof P.Moore, Dr P.E.Miller (The James Hutton Institute) and J.E.Chambers (British Geological Survey).

Funding: This research was jointly funded by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) BGS BUFI award (S241) and an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) DTA award (EP/L504828/1).


September 2013 - August 2011

MSc in Geodesy and Geoinformatics, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH) 

School of Build Environment, Stockholm, Sweden. 

Thesis: “Precision Analysis of 3D camera”

Aim: To investigate calibration parameters of a Time of Flight camera and assess the output accuracy with benchmark observations. Rubin Prize winner for the best thesis in 2013.

October 2000 - July 2006

BSc/MSc (5-year Diploma) in Rural and Surveying Engineering, National “Metsovio” Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece.

Research

Research Interest

To create data-driven solutions applying photogrammetric computer vision and remote sensing techniques with geospatial data acquired from heterogeneous sources to address global challenges such as water security, and help communities improve resilience to effectively respond to disasters (e.g. flooding and landslides). 


Postgraduate supervision

Current:
  • Ambreen Masud (MRes & PhD, Geospatial Systems CDT) - 2022 ongoing, Integrating remote sensing with citizen science for urban flood risk analysis in Cartagena, Colombia;
  • Francisco Salgado Castillo (MRes & PhD, Geospatial Systems CDT) - 2023 ongoing, Assessing vegetation phenology trends through traffic camera data: imputation, analysis, and comparison with satellite-based observations;
  • Siyin Li (completed; Data Science MSc Dissertation Project, School of Computing) - 2024, Monitoring of urban drainage systems using street-level image analysis and machine learning;
  • Joe Haines (PhD, Flood CDT) - 2024 ongoing, Improved hydrodynamic modelling with UAV-derived topography and bathymetry;
  • Abhinav Galodha (Commonwealth occasional PhD student) - 2024 ongoing, Tackling water sanitation and urban challenges, including developing water quality monitoring tools using high-resolution imagery & geospatial technology.


Research projects


September 2024 - March 2020

In collaboration with Prof Jon Mills to the UKRI GCRF Water Security and Sustainable Development Hub (Water Hub) research project. Main activities are the development of photogrammetric computer vision solutions to help solve global water security problems.

PI: Prof Richard Dawson

February 2020 - May 2018

In collaboration with Dr Wen Xiao to the NERC-funded project Flood-PREPARED. The main activities are analysis and utilisation of CCTV and social media imagery for flood extraction and traffic monitoring, including the precise identification of flooded areas as well as detection and tracking of vehicle and pedestrian movements. 

PI: Prof Stuart Barr

April 2018 - October 2017

Contribution to the AHRC-funded Cultural Heritage Through Time (CHT2) project; 3D multi-temporal reconstruction of the landscape change of cultural heritage over Hadrian’s Wall study sites; Application of Structure from Motion (SfM) with archival photography and integration with laser scanning datasets. 

PI: Prof Gabriele Guidi (Politecnico di Milano), Prof Jon Mills (NU), Prof Diego Gonzales-Augilera (Salamanca University), Prof Beata Hejmanowska (Stanislaw Staszic Scientific Association).




Teaching

Undergraduate teaching


  • CEG1706: Earth Observations (10 credits)
  • CEG2709: Satellite Earth Observation (10 credits)


Publications