John Friesen is a new postdoc joining the Earth Observation Research Cluster from May 2024. John will co-lead a work package within the EO4CAM (Earth Observation for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation) project focusing on urban areas. He holds a Masters degree in Biomedical Engineering from RWTH Aachen and a PhD in Engineering from Technische Universität Darmstadt. There he worked as a research associate and later as a group leader on projects related to urbanisation and infrastructures. John has expertise in studying spatial and temporal changes of (informal) settlement structures, with a strong interest in population dynamics. His interdisciplinary approach combines equation-driven, data-driven and agent-based modelling techniques to study settlement processes. He also analyses the resilience and accessibility of critical service infrastructures such as water and health systems.

During the pandemic, he started studying human medicine at the Goethe University in Frankfurt to deepen his interest in cardiovascular diseases and epidemiological issues.