Success stories of CBU students

Hi there. I would like to start in new autumn semester my blog series with inspiring message about the success stories of students in CBU Forestry and Environmental Engineering Programme (FEE) and our graduates. Forestry programme itself in still young; however our students have already reached significant achievements in academic and professional careers. So here I will write a little bit not only about my classmates who were started same year in CBU, but also those students who have started before and after me.

Mahesh Thapaliya is originally comes from Nepal, he started in CBU FEE in 2008 and graduated from the programme in 2010. He wrote his MSc thesis under the title “Structure and growth analysis of reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) on mires”. After the graduation in CBU he continued to work in MTT in as a specialist being involved in many projects, where he first came as a trainee during his internship. Nowadays Mahesh working in Arbonaut Ltd. where he is also found himself as GIS application specialist, however he is planning to continue with PhD studies afterwards to challenge himself in research career.

Aliaksandr Holubeu comes from Belarus, jumped into CBU FEE in 2009, however before starting with CBU he was studying in Saint-Petersburg State Forest-Technical Academy and completed his Bachelor’s degree there. From the very beginning of his studies in CBU he was very interested in GIS-application related to forestry and he wanted to explore more of that in Joensuu. Luckily University of Eastern offers many GIS oriented courses. Aliaksandr had his applied period in industrial company UPM-Kymmene in Russia and continued there as GIS specialist after that. He is planning to write his MSc thesis about the implementation of GIS technology in forestry operations in real Russian conditions.

Anton Kuzmin comes from Russia, he started CBU in 2009. He graduated from Petrozavodsk State University before joining CBU FEE programme. From the beginning he was interested in different methods of forestry inventory, particularly in applications of mobile unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for the inventory purposes. Nevertheless for his applied period Anton chose to explore forest certification field and had his experience in one of the certification bodies in Russia, however in his MSc thesis shifted back to UAV-technology to test and implement some methods there, and further on he continued to study those methods in his PhD work at School of Forest Sciences and Forestry.

Isabel Muñoz comes from Spain, she joined CBU in 2010. Before coming to CBU she has had already study experience from Pieksämäki. Already from the beginning she found the trainee position in the project led by METLA “Wood harvesting and logistics in Russia – Focus on research and business opportunities” and had her internship there. Her work was mainly related to policy analysis both in Finland and Russia related to forest practices. Nowadays Isabel is working partly in Arbonaut Ltd. as GIS specialist and partly studying at CBU.

Maybe next CBU success story is yours, so please keep it in mind, because everything is possible and you just need to grab the opportunities.