JENBERIA, Getnet DemilPhD Candidate | GeoAI Researcher | AI for Snow Hydrology | Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing

PhD researcher at the University of Oulu, specializing in GeoAI, remote sensing, and AI-driven hydrological modeling. My research involves creating deep learning frameworks to estimate snow hydrology parameters using Earth observation data from multiple sensors. I'm dedicated to merging multi-sensor imagery to enhance the accuracy of snow cover fraction and snow water equivalent estimates, which are crucial for hydrological modeling and analyzing climate impacts.

Research interests:

  • AI for hydrological modeling
  • Multi-temporal and multi-sensor data fusion
  • Snow water equivalent and snow cover estimation
  • Foundation models for Earth observation
  • Climate-focused computer vision
Education
PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Remote Sensing Technology for Hydrology Modeling, University of Oulu⁠
2024 – present | Oulu, Finland
Erasmus Mundus Joint MSc in Image Processing and Computer Vision, University of Bordeaux, Autonomous University of Madrid, Pazmany Peter Catholic University⁠
2022 – 2024 France, Spain, Hungary
MSc in Communication System Engineering, Bahir Dar University⁠
2020 – 2022
B.SC. in Electrical Engineering, Bahir Dar University⁠
2013 – 2018 | Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

*Award-Winning Thesis

Current Research
Artificial Intelligence and Remote Sensing Technology for Hydrology Modeling, Finland

My PhD research designs and evaluates deep learning architectures for extracting physically meaningful snow hydrology parameters from multi-sensor Earth observation data. The framework integrates SAR and optical satellite imagery through multi-temporal data fusion to improve estimation of snow cover fraction and snow water equivalent.

The contribution lies in bridging remote sensing feature extraction with hydrological modeling requirements, enabling:

  • Robust snow/cloud discrimination in complex atmospheric conditions
  • Cross-season generalization of segmentation models
  • Multi-sensor representation learning for cryospheric monitoring
  • End-to-end AI pipelines aligned with hydrological validation metrics
  • Research Visit
    Doctoral Research Visit, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Tropical Research & Education Center
    08/2026 – 10/2026 | University of Florida, USA
  • Combining satellite, drone, and ground data. I'll be working on merging data from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites with drone and ground measurements. This will give us a clearer and more frequent look at water management details.
  • Using deep learning to understand drone data. I'll be exploring deep learning models to automatically identify features in multispectral and thermal images captured by drones at TREC field sites. .
  • Sharing ideas on field validation. We'll exchange knowledge about field validation methods that improve how we estimate hydrological parameters using remote sensing. I plan to learn from the team's ground-truth validation techniques and adapt them for measuring snow water equivalent (SWE) and snow depth in areas with high latitudes.
  • Doctoral Research Secondment Visit, Research Institute of Sweden (RISE)
    01/2026 – 02/2026 | Gothenburg, Sweden

    Designed and validated a multi-task deep learning architecture that jointly solves three interconnected Nordic snow monitoring problems of current depth estimation, 7-day forecasting, and extreme event detection, using a single shared encoder trained on 10 years of real operational data (SMHI + MESAN).

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    Languages
    ENGLISH: Proficient (C1), AMHARIC: Native Speaker, SPANISH: A1, FINNISH: A1
    Skills
    Academic Skills: Image Processing, Computer Vision, Deep Learning, ML, AI, Remote Sensing, GIS, GEE
    Coding & others: Python, C++, MATLAB, PyTorch, JavaScript, Window, Linux, Debian, Ubuntu,
    Awards
  • Best Project of the Year- Bahir Dar University, 2018
  • Work Experience
    Doctoral Researcher in Artificial Intelligence and Remote Sensing Technology for Hydrology Modelling, University of Oulu, Finland
    09.2024 – Present
    Computer Vision Research on Deep Learning Based Estimation of Hydrology Parameters, University of Oulu, Finland
    02.2024 – 08.2024
    Junior Electrical Engineer, Ethiopian Electric Utility, Ethiopia
    2019 – 2022
    Technology Officer, US Embassy, American Spaces in Ethiopia
    2021 – 2022
    Portfolio
    Major Project and Research

    This project confidently applies deep learning methods to estimate snow hydrology parameters, directly utilizing findings from a published study and imagery data. Our clear goal is to build a robust data processing pipeline, covering every essential step from data acquisition and model selection to training strategies and performance evaluation.

    Vision Aided Recognition of Objects to Grasp with a Robot Arm, Object 6D Position Estimation, 2022- 2023

    We used DenseFusion for 6D pose estimation to help people with upper-limb disabilities grasp objects. We used RGB, depth, and mask images. We also created our own dataset using Unity and HTC Vive headsets, comprising 3D models, camera parameters, and RGB images for DenseFusion. See More

    Advanced Image Processing Method on UAV Images, 2023

    The objective of this project was to perform semantic segmentation on the images of crop fields, background, and weeds. To achieve this, three different segmentation models were deployed U-Net, Attention U-Net, and DeepLabV3+. See More

    Aerial Image Restoration and Land Type Identification System Using Customized Deconvolution and Texture Analysis, 2022
    Publications (5+)
    Seeing through the clouds: enhanced snow and cloud segmentation in sentinel-2 imagery with mDeepLabV3+⁠, Earth Science Informatics, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-025-01950-6
    Conferences
    Leveraging Social Media for Real-time Monitoring of Local Climate Impact⁠, ACM SIGIR, https://doi.org/10.1145/3769733.3769737
    References
    Reference available upon request
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