Breschan, Jochen, Dr.

Short Description

Dr. Jochen Breschan was born in Lucerne in 1977. He left school with a matriculation certificate (specialization in mathematics and natural sciences) in 1997. He studied Forest Sciences at ETH Zurich and received the diploma in 2003, specialized in natural hazards. During the study, he did internships at a public agency (Bernese Forest Agency), a private engineering consulting company (Philipona & Brügger Engineering Consultants) and a research institute (Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF) as a mandatory part of the studies.

After his study, he worked as a teaching assistant in the Land Use Engineering Group. Among other things, he organized a two-week field course “Blockkurs I” where the students applied problem solving techniques to plan forest utilization in a Pre-Alpine watershed. He got his PhD degree in science by his research on location analysis of cost-effective measures to mitigate flooding hazard in small watersheds. In the autumns 2007 and 2008, he conducted his visiting research at UC Santa Barbara, USA, with the group of Prof. Dr. R. L. Church (Spatial optimization, Geography Department) where he deepened his knowledge in formulating and solving spatial optimization problems in a rural environment. Since April 2011, he is a PostDoc at ETH Zurich.

At present, he is focusing on developing a method to automate classification of forest stands based on high-resolution elevation data (LiDAR), and participating in teaching the course “optimization methods for land use problems”.

Inputs

EcoForest: An interactive tool for trying landscape management.