Alumni

Cartography M.Sc. alumni ‒ A worldwide network
The Cartography M.Sc. programme has more than:
167
alumni
55
countries
In total, 230 students from 67 different countries enrolled for the programme in the first eleven intakes.

We asked some of our alumni to tell us about their Cartography M.Sc. experiences and about their current positions ...

Employers of our alumni include ...

Research institutions
University of Zurich | Technical University of Munich | University of Augsburg | University of Twente | Vienna University of Technology | University of Wuerzburg | University of Applied Sciences Munich | Aalborg Universitet | Delft University of Technology
Companies
ESRI | Airbus | Siemens | HERE | Yandex.Maps | European Space Imaging | Big Data Factory | Door2Door | WIGeoGIS GmbH | CGI Eesti AS | Opera solution | AccuEarth | Westermann Gruppe Braunschweig | Jeppesen, a Boeing Company
Administration
Landesamt für Vermessung und Geoinformation Schleswig-Holstein | Hessisches Landesamt für Bodenmanagement und Geoinformation | Regional Environmental Centre for the Caucasus (RECC) | Leibniz Institut für Länderkunde (IfL)
Alumni, students and professors of the Cartography M.Sc. at the International Cartographic Conference in Dresden, August 2013, where alumni presented posters of their work.
The MSc. in Cartography has greatly helped me in gaining the skills for my future career as cartographer and GIS specialist.
Professionally, it has set the background in several fields strongly connected with cartography and GIS such as remote sensing, web development, or cartographic design. After the first semester at TUM I was able to specialize in web cartography under the guidance of professors and assistants at TUW and TUD.

On a personal level, studying and living in three different cities has exposed me to different cultures, allowing me to meet and exchange information with colleagues from all over the world, which has broadened my horizon. During these two years I also learned German, and this proved to be very helpful in finding an interesting student job in the GIS sector in Dresden during the last semester.
Raluca Nicola
Romania, 1st intake
Ausschnitt des taktilen Atlas der Schweiz. Photo: Anna Vetter, Esri Schweiz
Our alumni Anna Vetter led the team who created the new “Tactile Atlas of Switzerland”
For me the international Master of Cartography was a journey both physically and mentally. As I was traveling from Munich (host city of Oktoberfest) to Vienna (a city-wide museum) to Dresden (with its great student life options), I had the opportunity of being in touch with cutting-edge research in Cartography and GIS fields. I also had the chance to be lectured by four great professors of these universities who opened my ways of thinking around my field of studies. After finishing this programme, when I look back I see great amount of technical knowledge, soft skills and social experiences which I gathered through two years of studying in ‘International Master of Cartography’.

Hereby I highly appreciate the setup, administration, cooperation and support of this great Master’s programme done by the universities behind it.
Meysam Aliakbarian
Iran, 1st intake
Studying in International Cartography was an inspiring and necessary phase in my life, as I found the program fit my interests, the lectures were motivating and I met so many wonderful people. The study gave me a solid foundation to spatial related and cartographic design related topics, as well it made it possible to get some experience with programming. Beside taken courses the work for my thesis allowed me to specialize further to the field of geovisualization with using Web technologies. This has given me the confident and suitable skills to fit into the team in which I currently work.

I work in a GIS team at an international company. At my current job I have various tasks for creating GIS applications. Mainly I work as a frontend developer to build the graphical interface of applications, and I also take care of design related tasks to create prototypes for the applications. Often in my work I need to deal with spatial databases. I think that the studies have given me an insight into the geo-world that supports finding creative solutions.
Katre Karja
CGI Eesti AS Tartu, Estonia, 3rd intake
When I decided to take part of the first ‘International Master programme in Cartography’ I expected to gain further cartographic skills, to meet nice people from all over the world who come together and share their knowledge about this field and additionally, to study in three amazing cities and universities. Because of the three universities and their different focus areas I got a widespread knowledge in Cartography. The people I met were very friendly and we became a strong and supportive group. I am very glad to had the chance to meet them.

The huge benefit of this programme was to be taught in English. All the lectures and the communication between my classmates helped me to improve this language. Now I can say I don't regret my decision to study this programme: all my expectations became real and I am proud to had this chance.
Katharina Zöphel
Germany, 1st intake
To my fellow Cartography alumni and students: Check out the Erasmus Mundus Association website to find the latest projects, online social and networking events, all organized by and for Erasmus Mundus students and alumni like us. Become an EMA member (it's free!), discover and connect with others via our EMA GENIE Map, contribute to existing projects (like our official Cookbook) or propose your own to reach our worldwide student network.

We're EMAzing together, CARTO!
Brandon Serrao
EMA Student Representative
of Cartography
I graduated from International Master Program in Cartography taught by the three cooperating Universities TU Munich, TU Vienna and TU Dresden in 2014. The study period gave me great opportunity to learn fundamental theories, concepts and methods in the field of cartography, geoinformation science and remote sensing.

During the summer break I found internship in a research center in Italy, where I also stayed for my master thesis. My study experience have been positive one due in part to the international environment. This Master Program gave me opportunity to continue on established research focus and realize my next step in development of my research goals in field of cartography, data visualization, spatial data infrastructure and remote sensing by becoming a Doctoral candidate at the Chair of Cartography and Visual Analytics, TU Munich.
Ekaterina Chuprikova
Russia, 2nd intake
The programme has been a stepping stone to my professional growth. I really enjoyed the wide variety of the universities, how they address the same field from completely different angles. In the end you can choose which approach resonates the best with you, to write the master thesis there. Finally, I fell for one of the cities so much that I decided to stay and continue my path here, applying and improving the gathered remote sensing skills at my current job.

Apart from the career benefits, during this time I have met really great people both, lecturers and classmates, from all over the world. Some of them became dear friends since.
Sigita Grinfelde
European Space Imaging GmbH Munich, Germany, 3rd intake
Our alumni Sigita Grinfelde organized an OSMGEOWEEK workshop for the current intake.
During the Cartography master program we were taught in cartographic fundamentals as well as in many other fields connected with cartography. Thus we knew what all the possible directions are and that we should not be afraid of something that we have hardly done before. For me personally I mostly valued the scientific visualization lectures in the 1st semester at TUM, since I could never imagine that visualizations like that were possible. Next I enjoyed web cartography at TU Wien and mobile cartography lectures at TU Dresden. I found out that I surprisingly like programming which together with visualizations became my dream job. In general, studying the MSc in Cartography was a perfect fit for my expectations and since graduation it has opened many doors for me in my professional career.
After graduation I worked 3 years for an international GIS company. Two years ago I decided to move closer towards my dream job which was meanwhile the biggest challenge for me because I was very new to programming. Therefore I am currently happily working as a scientific data visualization specialist at the largest European laser center ELI Beamlines.
Mariana Danielová
ELI Beamlines, Prague, Czech Republic, 2nd intake
A visualization of Mariana done at ELI Beamlines.
The generation of well-collimated mono-energetic bunch of light ions by controlled relativistic Richtmyer-Meshkov like instability in a double-layer target.
© ELI Beamlines
I am very pleased with my experience as a student in the ‘International Master of Cartography’ programme. I was able to live in three great European cites, work with students from many countries and cultures, get research experience in the field, and obtain a top-quality education that has led to my continuing academic career as a PhD student and researcher.

Although there were some challenging days, in the end the benefits far outweighed any difficulties encountered along the way. And I now have a group of lifelong friends from all over the globe!
Jeff Welter
USA, 1st intake
Our alumni Jeff Welter with his Großglockner relief, which was also exhibited at the International Cartographic Exhibition in Dresden, 2013.

Alumni networks

TUM Network
More than 50,000 TUM alumni from 139 countries, 650 founders and more than 1,000 mentors: The TUM network is available for alumni and students lifelong. It connects TUM graduates all over the world and becomes another vivid community.
TUD Alumni Network
Are you interested in receiving news from your department and the Technical University of Dresden? If you would like to be kept informed about events, job offers and important dates relating to your faculty, then TUD would like to cordially invite you to join the Alumni Network.
ITC Alumni
ITC alumni belong to a worldwide community of over 20,000 individuals, who together form an extensive network of international contacts, a network that includes United Nations organisations, universities, research groups, resources survey and map production services, and various international professional associations.
Erasmus Alumni Association
Erasmus Mundus students and alumni are welcome to join EMA