Address

Department of Built Environment, Aalto University, Otakaari 4, 02150 Espoo, Finland

Dr. Oleksandr Karasov

Postdoctoral researcher

Department of Built Environment, Aalto University

Oleksandr joined GIST Lab in 2024 to work on his postdoctoral project, UkrAInability, which aims to catalogue, assess, and map the non-material impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on people-nature relationships and landscape sustainability in Ukraine. His research leverages an integrated methodology based on social media and remote sensing to reveal shifts in people’s behaviours and landscape characteristics. He also develops a time-based approach to assessing cultural ecosystem services. Oleksandr is part of the IPBES Transformative Change assessment.

Previously, Oleksandr was a member of the Landscape Geoinformatics lab at the University of Tartu (2020–21) and the Digital Geography Lab at the University of Helsinki (2021–24). He is passionate about making the intangible values of nature measurable and manageable, combining diverse data-driven perspectives—including digital anthropology, cultural analytics, GIS, and remote sensing—which formed the core of his PhD at the Estonian University of Life Sciences. Oleksandr enjoys museums, hiking, and is a friend to two lovely cats, Zefirka and Barbarysia.

Education

  1. 2020

    PhD in Environmental Science

    Estonian University of Life Sciences
  2. 2016

    Erasmus Mundus mobility (60 ECTS, PhD project)

    University of Minho, Portugal
  3. 2015

    MSc in Physical Geography and Geoecology

    V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine

Professional experience

  1. 2021-2024
    Postdoctoral researcher
    Digital Geography Lab, University of Helsinki
  2. 2020-2021
    Research Fellow
    Landscape Geoinformatics lab, University of Tartu
  3. 2020
    GIS expert
    Estonian University of Life Sciences

Awards

  • 2020
    3rd prize award for the doctoral thesis at the National Contest for University Students (Natural sciences)
    Estonian Ministry of Education and Research