Our New MaD Man – Thomas Maier

Thomas’ background lies in electrical engineering, which he mainly studied at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. In his Bachelor studies he focused on theoretical electromagnetic field theory before discovering his interests in sensor technology. His Master’s studies thus mainly consisted of specializing in the field of sensing and instrumentation, embedded systems and hardware design. He got to know many different teaching approaches during his stays abroad at the University of Glasgow, Scotland and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India. Those experiences were put into use when he supervised student projects at the german research competition ‘Jugend Forscht’.

During his studies he co-founded the startup called Agvolution with the aim of making farming related decisions less individual & subjective but more objective and data driven. Agvolution is providing hardware sensors and recommends actions such as fertilization, pest management and water demand based on the data harvested from a field. With this knowledge, Thomas joined the Mad-Lab to work on a project together with the city of Erlangen. The goal is to improve the irrigation strategies of the city’s trees that are currently suffering from the ongoing drought stress in Europe by using live climate data in Erlangen.

Welcome Thomas!