Successful MSc Defense by Lena Jäger

Successful MSc Defense by Lena Jäger

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February 24, 2026

On 24 February 2026, EAGLE MSc student Lena Jäger successfully defended her Master’s thesis titled “Assessing the potential of thermal UAS for spatio-temporal Arctic snow monitoring – A pilot study in Bjørndalen, Svalbard.”
Her work focused on one of the Arctic’s most dynamic environmental challenges: rapidly changing snow conditions in a region warming several times faster than the global average. Using thermal drone imagery collected during a field campaign from February to June 2025, she investigated how uncrewed aerial systems can help close long‑standing gaps in high‑resolution snow monitoring.


The study provides new insights into snowpack characteristics by combining UAS‑based thermal products, such as snow‑depth estimates and temperature‑variance maps, with in‑situ measurements. Lena also developed a reproducible workflow for classifying snow surfaces over time, enabling detailed mapping of snow properties across the landscape. While challenges remain—such as image artifacts and the difficulty of detecting older ice layers—the thesis demonstrates the strong potential of thermal UAS to complement existing methods in Arctic snow research.

The project was supervised by Dr. Mirjana Bevanda (EORC, University of Würzburg) and Dr. Larissa T. Beumer from the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), whose expertise supported both the methodological development and the Arctic fieldwork component.

We congratulate Lena Jäger on her successful defense and her valuable contribution to advancing remote sensing approaches in polar environments.

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