01 / About
From Tamil Nadu.
Thinking spatially.
I’m Athithya. I connect Earth observation, geospatial engineering, and official statistics.
I grew up in Tamil Nadu and studied geoinformatics in Tirunelveli. In 2018, I moved to the Netherlands for a master’s at ITC. Software, imagery, maps, and research have been part of the journey ever since.
Today, I work as a geospatial researcher at Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and a PhD researcher at ITC, University of Twente. My question: how can we describe what land is used for, rather than only what it looks like?
The path / 2011 to today
Not a straight line.
Study, industry, and research overlap. Open a chapter for the details.
2011–2015BE GeoinformaticsAnna University of Technology, Tirunelveli
The starting point: geoinformatics in Tamil Nadu and a foundation for working with geographic information.
2015–2018
Software engineeringCGI, Bengaluru · Shell client projects
Software engineering at CGI. My client-project experience included Shell; Shell was a client, not a separate employer.
2018–2020
MSc GeoinformaticsITC, University of Twente, Enschede
I moved to the Netherlands to study at ITC. My master’s research explored object classification from RGB imagery and mobile-laser-scanning point clouds in a railway environment. Read the thesis.
2019–2020
Data science internshipTomTom, Amsterdam
A data science internship alongside the master’s chapter, connecting research with practical geospatial work.
2020Graduate researchITC, University of Twente
A research role at ITC after the master’s programme.
2021–2022Geospatial data engineeringeLEAF, Wageningen
Working with satellite-based crop-insurance applications at eLEAF.
2022–2023Geospatial software engineeringTomTom, Eindhoven
Geospatial software engineering and map accuracy for autonomous-driving applications.
2023–present
Geospatial researchStatistics Netherlands, The Hague
Land use, air quality, and Earth observation for official statistics. I was part of the CBS team behind the 2025 Air Inequity hackathon project. Explore the work.
2025–presentPhD researchITC, University of Twente
Bringing imagery and registry context together for fine-grained land-use mapping. Explore the research.
Year-level overview. Bars show overlap, not exact month-level durations. Organisation marks identify career context, not sponsorship or endorsement.