Thomas Kemper

Thomas Kemper, Ph.D., is leading the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) project at the European Commission, Joint Research Centre. He has a wide experience in remote sensing for the detection and characterization of settlements in support of EU policies. As part of the GEO Human Planet Initiative, he contributed to the discussions leading to the proposal of Resilient Cities and Human Settlements as fourth engagement priority of GEO.

He obtained a Ph.D. degree in geosciences from the University of Trier (Germany) in 2003. From 2004 to 2007, he helped in setting up the Center for Satellite-Based Crisis Information (ZKI) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which provides rapid mapping information after natural disasters. Since 2007, he is working at the JRC on the analysis of human settlements in the GHSL project.