By Dr Csongor István Gedeon
Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Agricultural Research
Dr Csongor Gedeon is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Soil Sciences, Hungary. He is an ecologist defining himself as a naturalist and the main thread that connects his research and work experience either in management, administrative, or scientific positions is to provide tools for a better management of protected or key soil animals, and particularly burrowing small mammals.
He obtained a combined BSc and MSc of Biology (Ecology) in 1998 at József Attila University, Szeged, and a PhD degree with honour in Biology (Ethology) in 2012 at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. His PhD dissertation on the habitat use of ground squirrels included a supplement guide for evidence based reintroduction of European sousliks. Between 1998 and 2012, he was working in nature conservation and academic sectors either in wildlife management, science policy or research positions. His research on developing non-invasive population estimation methods by applying a combination of proximal sensing and machine learning techniques for the better management soil burrowing mammals has involved more and more technical elements and advanced statistical approaches from electrical engineering, geophysics to multi-point geostatistics. This applied-research includes automated detection and mapping of animal burrows using photogrammetry, ground penetrating radar surveying, and advanced spatial modelling of animal burrows.
Dr Gedeon was visiting Fulbright and OECD scholars to Northern Arizona and Dickinson State Universities in 2004 and 2018, and got ÖAD scholarships to the Universities of Vienna and Veterinary Medicine Vienna in 2005 and 2021. He also held a post-doc position at Kyoto University between 2012 and 2014. Since 2018, he has broadened his theoretical research into the interface between the activity of soil macroorganisms and human well-being in co-operation with Eric C. Brevik. Since 2017, he has engaged with being the member of the governmental expert group for the protection of mole-rats and sousliks.