GRSG Student Awards

STUDENT RESEARCH AWARDS

The GRSG Annual Student Research Award will provide financial support of up to £1,000 each for two deserving PhD or MSc students working in geological remote sensing or a related field.

“As we enter this new chapter as a registered charity, supporting the next generation of geological remote sensing scientists remains a key priority for the GRSG. We are committed to ensuring that students have access to the necessary funding to support innovative research.” 

GRSG Chair Olivia Rhind

What can the award support?

Funding can be used towards:

  • Field activities
  • Equipment and lab work
  • Research activities
  • Other research-related necessities not provided by your institution

What do we expect from award recipients?

Successful applicants will be asked to:

  • Contribute an article to the GRSG Newsletter, reflecting on their research and how the award supported their work; and
  • Present their research at the annual GRSG Conference.

A supervisor sign-off will be required before the award is granted to confirm support for these commitments.

Who can apply?

Applications are open to students at further education establishments anywhere in the world, provided that applicants:

  • Are enrolled in an MSc or PhD programme in geological remote sensing or a related field; and
  • Are a GRSG Student Member (Student membership is only £10: Join the GRSG as a Student Member)

GRSG Student Research Award Application Form

Please complete the form below to apply for this year’s Student Awards and please note that the deadline for applications to be received is: 16th October 2026

Which level of course are you studying?
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Please upload a document to tell us how you will use the GRSG award including details such as for each item associate an estimated expense.

The lucky winners from previous years, are listed below.

2024 - Student Awards

Sachinthani Weeranayake, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observations (ITC), University of Twente – Mineral mapping of Eastern DRC using hyperspectral remote sensing

Rebecca England, University of Sheffield – Spectroscopic Measurements of Volcanic Gases in Volcanic Environments

Jayesh Mukherjee, Aberystwyth University – Tracing lost rivers in the sand: employing detrended digital elevation data to discern palaeochannels in the Luni River floodout, north-western India

Sophie Mann, University of Nottingham – Assessing Coastal Granulometry from Remotely Sensed Data.

Anindya Majhi, University of Manchester – Investigating gully evolution through analysis of digital elevation data and historical satellite imagery

Gerard Gallardo i Peres, Imperial College London – Development of simulated EnVision and VERITAS image products by means of Magellan and Earth observation analogue data for change detection and geomorphological mapping applications.

Priscila Martins Oliveira da Costa, UNICAMP, Brazil – Oil spill characterisation with SAR

Adrian Ctvrtnicek, Imperial College London, United Kingdom – Deep learning for mineral exploration: New neural network approach for classification of hydrothermal alteration using PRISMA spaceborne hyperspectral data

PhD Awards

Fardad Magsoudi Moud: ITC/University of Twente – Quantitative models for mineral exploration: from local to regional

Neill Marshall: University of Oxford – Active Faulting and Tectonics of the eastern Caspian region (Central Asia)

Ahmed Mahmoud: University of Nottingham – The uses of Remote Sensing for Monitoring Sand Dunes Movement

PhD Awards

Edna Warsame Dualeh: University of Leeds, UK – Observing volcanic eruption dynamics from Synthetic Aperture Radar backscatter data

Adam Cotterill: University College of London, UK – A Comprehensive Assessment of Volcanic Hazard and Mitigation Strategies at Remote Volcanoes: Manam and Ulawun, Papua New Guinea

MSc Awards

Bruno Virgilio Portela: ITC – Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation – University of Twente, Netherlands

PhD Awards

Jennifer Scoular, Imperial College London – PhD

Vishal Mishra, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee – PhD

MSc Awards

Lais Camargo Novaes, University of Campinas – UNICAMP – MSc

PhD Awards

Jesse Zondervan (PhD), University of Plymouth – Quantifying landscape response to tectonics and climate using river terraces in the Atlas Mountains, central Morocco

Paolo Caporossi (PhD), University of Rome – Development and application of Image Processing methodologies for landslide monitoring.

Daithí Maguire (PhD), University of Ireland Galway – The application of satellite-borne remote sensors for monitoring coastal erosion and ecosystems in Ireland.

PhD Awards

Jo Miles, University of Bristol, UK – Mapping the potassic footprint of volcanic-hydrothermal systems from the shallow submarine environment through aerial radiation mapping: an example from Milos Island, Greece

Dario Solano, University of Miami, USA – Differential subsidence analysis over the Collective Transport System (Metro) in Mexico City using high-resolution X-band spaceborne SAR.

MSc Award

Imam Purwadi, ITC, University of Twente, the Netherlands – Mapping iron-bearing mineral for evaluating the environmental benefit of REE mining plans: a case study in abandoned mine sites, Indonesia

Patrick Carson (University College London): Deep Convolutional Neural Network Approach for Landmine Recognition in UAV Captured Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) imagery

Saeid Asadzadeh (University of Campinas): The detection of natural and anthropogenic petroleum using SWIR bands of the WorldView-3 satellite data

Rebecca Collins (University of Worcester): A very high resolution analysis of the evolution of form roughness and its influence on river bank erosion and channel change

Raquel Serrano Calvo (University of Aberdeen) – “Prediction of collapsing karstic events by integrating NDVI Index from Landsat-7 ETM+ imagery and GIS tools. Application to the zone between Salisbury and Winchester, United Kingdom.”

Jeanne M Giniaux (University of Leeds) – “Combination of InSAR data with time-dependent microgravity to constrain the magma plumbing system of Askja volcano, North Iceland”

Stephen Brough (Aberystwyth University) – “Reconstruction and dynamic assessment of glacier-like forms on Mars.”

Huma Irfan (Birkbeck, University of London/University College London) – “Investigation and characterisation of potential landing sites in the lunar South Pole region using lunar remote sensing data.”

David Mackezie (University of Oxford) – “Earthquake hazard and tectonic shortening in the Kazakh Tien Shan”

Negin Fouladi Moghaddam (Monash University) – “Subsurface structural properties retrieval using space-borne SAR interferometry deformation maps”

Stuart Turner (University of Leicester) – “Mineralogical characterisation of Martian impact craters using CRISM data – the search for future landing sites”

Jennifer Harris (Birkbeck University of London) – “Remote and in-situ reflectance spectroscopy of Mars-analogue hydrothermal alteration”

Amy Woodget (University of Worcester) – “An assessment of the use of high resolution imagery collected from an unmanned aerial system for the quantification of fluvial topography”

Yu Zhou (University of Oxford) – “Active faulting and tectonics of the Ordos block in northern China”

Allen Pope (University of Cambridge): Investigation flow speed and surface lowering of western Antarctic Peninsula Glaciers.

William Hutchinson (University of Oxford): Causes of volcanic deformation in the main Ethiopian rift.

Martin Walter Airey (University of Oxford): Volcanism as an active planetary process on Venus.

Andrew Singleton, 1st Year PhD Student, University of Glasgow

Advanced space geodesy techniques for landslide hazard mapping in the Three Gorges region, China. Development of an approach to quantifying landslide hazard and slope stability through the use of permanent scattering and short-baseline InSAR in the non-urban areas of the Three Gorges region.

Laura Cordero Llana, 3rd Year PhD Student, Swansea University

Volume estimation of melt-lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet from combined satellite observations. Using pre-existing reflectance-depth models on ASTER, and IKONOS data and then attempting to upscale with MODIS data for increased spatial coverage, validating the technique using ICESat laser altimeter measurements.

Natasha Stephen, 2nd Year PhD Student, Imperial College, London

The geology and surface mineralogy of Mars; interpretations from meteorite-derived, Martian-specific mineral spectra and their comparison with remotely-sensed thermal emission spectroscopy (TES) data. Uses TES data to map the geology and mineralogy of Mars through mixture-model based classifications, and detailed assessments of the effect of orientation on ground-truth data.

Veraldo Liesenberg (2nd Year PhD, Technische Universitat Bergakademie Freiberg)
Evaluating the potential of multiple sources of remote sensing data to support carbon assessment of tropical peatland environments. Two approaches to merging ASAR and PALSAR InSAR data with PROBA & hyperion hyperspectral data are evaluated for a study area in Indonesia. Data are to be used to investigate up-scaling and the relation between BRDF and microwave properties to geophysical parameters. Funds will be used for purchasing data, travel for fieldwork and attendance at GRSG’s AGM

Elspeth Robertson (1st Year PhD University of Bristol)
Determining the driving mechanism behind the observed ‘pulse-like’ surface deformation of volcanoes in the East African Rift Valley, and to quantify the fluxdes involved by combining satellite observatiopns with hydrological, petrological and magmatic models. InSAR will be used to constrain the periods of deformation, and fieldwork will be used to help distinguish the causes behind the deformation, through the use of a LICOR non-dispersive infra-red spectrometer to measure CO2 fluxes; and petro-chemical measurements from erupted lavas.

Laura Gregory (3rd Year PhD Oxford University)
Assessing and comparing the rates and styles of tectonic deformation that occur in the mountain building process (erosion, uplift, faulting) in the Mongolian Altay Mountains. Using maps of fault motion derived from Landsat, ASTER, SRTM and ASTER GDEM datasets. Active faulting will be mapped in detail in unmapped areas. Funds will be used for fieldwork that involves the observation of the surface expression of the faults that were remotely identified.