Dr. Timm Schoening

“Marine data scientist advocating FAIR & open science.”

Research & Education

Team lead of several marine data scientists, with leadership training, 7 multi-year project leads, PostDocs at 3 institutes, Dr.Ing. with honours in AI-based marine image analysis in 2015, B.Sc. & M.Sc. in “Computer science in the natural sciences”

• Since 2022 Founding head of the Data Science Unit at GEOMAR
• 2023 - 2024 Helmholtz Leadership Academy training on “Adopting Leadership”
• 2020 - 2022 Research data manager for ROV/AUV data workflows at GEOMAR
• 2019 - 2022 Staff scientist at GEOMAR in the DeepSea Monitoring Group. H2020 project "iAtlantic".
• 2018 - 2019 PostDoc in the Future Ocean excellence cluster at the GEOMAR Helmholtz-Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. Rapid off-shore Analysis of Marine Imagery
• 2018 PostDoc at Okeanos, University of the Azores, Horta, Portugal (DFG Research Fellowship). Exploiting 3D information for an automated semantic analysis of underwater images
• 2015 - 2017 PostDoc at the GEOMAR in the DeepSea Monitoring Group (Prof. Dr. Jens Greinert). Automated Image Analysis in the framework of the JPIOceans “EcoMining” Project.
• 2015 Ph.D. in Computer Science - with honors:
  "Automated detection in benthic images for megafauna classification and marine resource exploration: supervised and unsupervised methods for classification and regression tasks in benthic images with efficient integration of expert knowledge" (Bielefeld University) - Review committee: Prof. Dr. Tim W. Nattkemper (Bielefeld University), Prof. Dr. Rafael Garcia (University of Girona), Dr. Hanumant Singh (WHOI)
• 2010 M.Sc. in Computer Science in the Natural Sciences: 
  "Towards Improved Epilepsia Diagnosis by Unsupervised Segmentation of Neuropathology Tissue Sections using Ripley's-L Features" (Bielefeld University)
• 2008 B.Sc. in Computer Science in the Natural Sciences: 
  "Web 2.0 techniques for exploratory image database analysis" (Bielefeld University)

Practical Experience

Chair, speaker, and member of various community activities, initiator and host of international science events, elected representative, supervisor of >50 students.

• Co-speaker of the DataHub working group on “AI-readiness”
• Chair of the working group on Data science and data management for the planned FUTURO campaign
• Member of the steering board of the DETECT project (Irish EPA)
• Speaker of the Helmholtz MUSE infrastructure project task on “Data flows”
• Member of the steering board of the MarData research school on data science
• Speaker of the GEOMAR 2030 strategy group on Digital Twins
• Member of the GEOMAR digital council as spokesperson of Research Division 2 (until 2022) and as contact for machine learning and towards Helmholtz AI
• Chair of the DataHub working group on Videos & Images
• Member of the PostDoc team to setup the PostDoc Academic Career Support Center (PACT) at GEOMAR
• Co-host of the 2019 Image Analysis Days Schleswig-Holstein
• Member of the Scientific Organizing Committee to conduct the third Marine Imaging Workshop at Ocean Networks Canada, Victoria, BC
• Initiated & conducting the Digital Science Monday seminar series at GEOMAR, in parallel setting up GEOMAR Knowledge Hubs, since 2019 jointly conducted with the MarData research school.
• Elected PostDoc speaker within the Future Ocean excellence cluster and at GEOMAR
• Research scholarship at Okeanos (Azores) conducting 3D cold-water coral imaging in the lab and high-performance image analysis
• Participated in the Kiel University PostDoc summer school on project management, academic teaching, proposal writing, leadership, self-management and agile management
• Chair of the scientific and local organizing committees to conduct the second Marine Imaging Workshop (February 2017 at GEOMAR, ca. 100 attendees)
• Co-chair of the scientific organizing committee that initiated and conducted the first Marine Imaging Workshop (April 2014 at NOC, UK, ca. 100 attendees)
• Training of more than 50 B.Sc. / M.Sc. / Ph.D. students and interns in software development and research projects for underwater image analysis, marine data science and FAIR data management
• Exchange semester to the Bioimage Analysis Lab at University of Warwick, UK

Cruises

8.5 months at sea in total. 1 cruise (1 month) as chief scientist on a large vessel, 2 cruises as co-PI. Worked on RV Maria S. Merian, RV Sonne, RV Poseidon and RV Pelagia with ROVs, AUVs and traditional sampling gear. Researched in the North Sea and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

• PI for RV Maria S Merian MSM96 (2020): Emden - Emden; Metal geochemistry meets machine learning - Data - Cruise Report
• RV Sonne SO268-1&2 (2019): Manzanillo – Vancouver; Station Planning, AUV Operations, Optical and Sensor Network Data Management, Automated Image Analysis, Manganese Nodule Measurements from BoxCores, Deployment Management in GIS
• PI for RV Poseidon cruise POS526 “SeaSOM” (2018): Bergen – Kiel; Semi-autonomous optical monitoring technologies for bubble release sites and cold water coral reefs
• MIDAS Pelagia cruise (2016): Faial – Faial; ROV and towed camera operations, data management and imagery analysis
• RV Sonne SO242-1 (2015): Guayaquil – Guayaquil; AUV operation, image analysis and annotation
• RV Sonne SO239 (2015): Panama – Manzanillo; AUV operation, image analysis and annotation
• RV Sonne Testcruise (2014): Kiel – Gran Canaria; ROV video analysis and annotation

Research Publications

H-Index: 23, 2373 citations, I10-Index: 33, Open Access rate 100% (in the past 10 years). >80 data publications (raw data, processed data, data products). 4 Open-Source software tools.

See https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=X0MKUhkAAAAJ for most recent publications. Selected works:

• 2024 Simonetta Frascetti et al. Future Science Brief on Marine Habitat Mapping (European Marine Board)
  http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11203128
• Timm Schoening, Jennifer M. Durden, et al. Making marine image data FAIR. (Nature Scientific Data)
  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01491-3
• Timm Schoening, Autun Purser et al. Megafauna community assessment of polymetallic-nodule fields with cameras: platform and methodology comparison. (Biogeosciences)
  https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-3115-2020
• Schoening, Timm (2021): Results of nodule detection along OFOS tracks of RV SONNE cruise SO268. (Pangaea)
  https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.935231
• Iason Zois-Gazis et al. Multibeam bathymetry processed data (Kongsberg EM 122 working area dataset) of RV MARIA S. MERIAN during cruise MSM96 (Pangaea)
  https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.930063
• Timm Schoening. SHiPCC—A Sea-going High-Performance Compute Cluster for Image Analysis. (Frontiers in Marine Science)
  https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00736
• Timm Schoening, Kevin Köser, Jens Greinert. An acquisition, curation and management workflow for sustainable, terabyte-scale marine image analysis. (Nature Scientific Data)
  https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.181
• Timm Schoening, Daniel Jones, Jens Greinert Compact Morphology based Delineation of Poly-Metallic Nodules (Nature Scientific Reports)
  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-13335-x
• Schoening, Timm (2017): Results of nodule detection along AUV tracks during SONNE cruises SO239 and SO242/1. (Pangaea)
  https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.883838
• Greinert, Jens; Schoening, Timm; Köser, Kevin; Rothenbeck, Marcel: Seafloor images and raw context data along AUV tracks during SONNE cruises SO239 and SO242/1. (Pangaea)
  https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.882349
• Daniel Langenkämper, Martin Zurowietz, Timm Schoening, Tim W Nattkemper: BIIGLE 2.0-browsing and annotating large marine image collections (Frontiers in Marine Science)
  https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2017.00083
• Timm Schoening, Jonas Osterloff, Tim W Nattkemper RecoMIA - Recommendations for Marine Image Annotation: Lessons Learned and Future Directions (Frontiers in Marine Science)
  https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2016.00059
• Timm Schoening, Thomas Kuhn, Melanie Bergmann, Tim W Nattkemper DELPHI - fast and adaptive computational laser point detection and visual footprint quantification for arbitrary underwater image collections (Frontiers in Marine Science)
  https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2015.00020
• Jen Durden, Timm Schoening et al. Perspectives in Visual imaging for marine biological and ecological research (Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review)
• Timm Schoening, Melanie Bergmann, Jörg Ontrup, et al. Semi-Automated Image Analysis for the Assessment of Megafaunal Densities at the Arctic Deep-Sea Observatory HAUSGARTEN (PLoS ONE)
  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0038179

Awards

• Briese Research PhD Award for Marine Science (2017)

Research grants

> 1.5 M€ acquired so far from BMDV, BMWI/K, Helmholtz, H2020, DFG and the Azorean government.

• GEOMAR PI for the Helmholtz.Imaging project “BenthicAI”
• GEOMAR PI for the BMDV project “Argus”
• GEOMAR PI for the BMWK project "MARISPACE-X" (GAIA-X)
• Contributor to the Helmholtz FIS project “MUSE”
• GEOMAR PI for the HMC project “FDO-5DI”
• Co-proponent of the EU H2020 project “iAtlantic”
• Contributor to setting up the “Helmholtz AI Cooperation Unit” (now Helmholtz-AI)
• Contributor to setting up the project “Helmholtz Image Computing” (now Helmholtz.Imaging)
• PI of the DFG Research Fellowship “Exploiting 3D information for an automated semantic analysis of underwater images”
• PI of the FutureOcean PostDoc project “Rapid, offshore Analysis of Marine Imagery”
• Co-proponent of the FutureOcean project “General Purpose Underwater Spectral Imaging”
• Co-proponent of the GEOMAR project “Multi-Spectral Image Capture”

Research collaborations

OSCM – Mindelo (Cabo Verde), University of the Atlantic (Cabo Verde), Ifremer (France), NOC (UK), Okeanos (Azores, Portugal), JUB (Germany), RBINS (Belgium), Marum (Germany), AWI (Germany), NIOZ (Netherlands),BGR (Germany), Ocean College Zhejiang (China), DKRZ (Germany), HZDR (Germany), Hereon (Germany), Plymouth University (UK), MBARI (USA), Ocean Networks Canada, Bielefeld University (Germany), Kiel University (Germany), PANGAEA (Germany)

Reviewing

PLoS One, MDPI Sensors, Scientific Reports, Journal of Ocean Engineering, Computer Vision for the Analysis of Underwater Images, Journal of Sea Research, MDPI Imaging, Marine Ecology Progress Series, Belmont Forum, Project Management Jülich (PTJ), Marine Geology, Progress in Oceanography, Swiss National Science Foundation, Journal of Field Robotics, BioVis, Applied Soft Computing, Journal of Sea Research, Geoscientific Instrumentation Methods and Data Systems, Frontiers in Marine Science