Kevin Tansey is Professor of Remote Sensing in the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment at the University of Leicester. He is also Director of Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise for the College of Science and Engineering. He took on the leadership role for EMCoE in January 2019.
Kevin has a long track record on working on innovation and working with industry of EO/satellite-led services. He is responsible for the Copernicus Global Land Service Global Burned Area product and is a recipient of InnovateUK funding in the use of Earth Observation to support renewable energy activities in developing countries. He is also a con-investigator on two IPP projects looking at international EO services in Colombia and Indonesia.
Svetlana Zolotikova
Centre Liaison
Svetlana is the direct liaison with the Catapult ensuring strong and proactive links between the EMCoE partners and a clear point of contact with the Catapult. Svetlana is Prince 2 qualified and works at the University of Leicester since 2009 and was involved in SATURN, G-STEP, DORIS_Net and THE ISSUE projects. Svetlana currently acts as an interface between the research community involved in Earth Observation (EO), Global Navigation (GNSS) and Global Monitoring (GMES/Copernicus) systems at the University of Leicester and stakeholders. This involves two principle roles: preparation, mentoring, outreach and management of EC proposals; and working with regional authorities and industry in translation of research products to practical applications. In the past she has specifically focussed, through a series of Framework Programme 7 and Horizon2020 projects, on analysing and communicating the needs of the stakeholders in the regional development community across Europe.
Stephen Wright
Business Development Manager
Dr Stephen Wright has a BSc in Physics from Leicester and PhD in Engineering from Nottingham. Stephen has an extensive background in technology driven growth, working in the US and UK in both consulting and business management. This has included business turnarounds, startups, business integration, new product development and growth strategy. In addition to running his own consultancy business in Silicon Valley, he has built an advisory practice for Deloitte in LA, brought the US division of a Norwegian aerospace company to profitability, and managed start-ups for a UK Angel fund.
Within his role of EMCoE Business Development Manager, Stephen supports the SPRINT programme as an Innovation Adviser helping SMEs to access the programme funding. In addition to SPRINT, Stephen helps to build collaborations for other funding such as Innovate UK and ESA.
Kavitha Muthu
UK Regional Ambassador
Kavitha has more than a decade of experience within the Space sector, from conceptualisation to delivery of innovative applications using space technologies and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). She has a PhD in expert systems and fuzzy neural network techniques for landslide mapping using Earth Observation (EO) and machine learning. She has a diverse range of work experience including the roles of Space Innovation Facilitator, Programme/Project Manager, Technical Lead on EO applications and bid manager. She also has a track record in organising and delivering end user workshops; contributing to the development of commercialisation roadmaps; and building stakeholder engagements with SMEs, Industry, Academics and Government departments to promote uptake of EO data and services/solutions.
