Mirjam has worked at the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI) without any interruptions since the mid-1990s. She was introduced to the FGI when coming to Finland for an internship while studying geodesy at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Mirjam initially worked with photogrammetry and GPS research before switching to her favourite subject, gravity, in the early 2000s. Mirjam got her doctorate in the spring of 2021 from Aalto University. The title of her thesis was Geoid and postglacial rebound related gravity change in Finland.
Despite having spent most of her career on gravity research, the scope of Mirjam’s work has broadened considerably in recent years. Mirjam is the head of the Reference Systems research group at the FGI. The group studies all reference systems, coordinates, height and gravity, and related transformations. The group is also responsible for the FGI’s two standard laboratories, which study length and the acceleration of free fall.
“Gravity data can be used to calculate a geoid model, for example. A geoid model is a transformation surface that links heights measured with GPS to the Finnish height system. Gravity is directly related to heights,” she explains.
Research institute collaborates with universities
The FGI cooperates with Aalto University, and this collaboration is also reflected in Mirjam’s work duties. For the past two years, Mirjam has been a professor of practice on geodesy applications in geoinformatics. She teaches an advanced geodesy course, runs a master’s seminar and sometimes acts as a thesis supervisor.
What kind of a background can lead you to gravity research?
“At school, I was always good at maths and physics, and also interested in geography. When you mix these together, you get land surveying and geodesy. From the very beginning, I was interested in gravity and physical geodesy,” Mirjam says.