Faculty and Staff
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Eshetu Erkihune Lecturer
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Courses at Cal Poly
- BRAE 237 – Introduction to Engineering Surveying
- BRAE 239 – Engineering Surveying
Future Insights / Looking Forward to Cal Poly:
As a Full-time Lecturer, I am deeply committed to the core value of teaching that Cal Poly (BRAE) embodies. I look forward to engaging with students by integrating GNSS with total stations, leveling, terrestrial laser scanning, and airborne sensors to teach foundational and advanced surveying practices. This includes core skills such as basic measurement concepts, use of surveying equipment and tools, working with surveying graphics, performing basic computations, and understanding professional land surveying. Students will gain real-world, high-precision field experience—among many other possibilities—across engineering, environmental, and agricultural applications.
While teaching remains my primary role, alongside teaching, I wish to conduct research that integrates geospatial technologies—GNSS, InSAR, LiDAR, photogrammetry, and terrestrial surveying—for addressing pressing environmental challenges, engineering tasks, and other developmental activities. With a solid background in geodetic/survey control establishment, geodetic computation and adjustment, post-processing of GNSS long series data, and reality capture for spatial analysis, I am particularly enthusiastic about applying these measurements/observations to monitor and mitigate natural hazards such as wildfires, floods, structural deformations, landslides, earthquakes, and sea-level rise.
Building on this foundation, I plan to expand and densify geodetic ground control networks across campus and the surrounding area. These networks will be aligned with modern global reference frames and support a wide range of high-precision applications including construction surveying, smart city infrastructure, agricultural automation, and environmental studies. Students will have the opportunity to gain hands-on exposure to these systems and apply classroom concepts in field-based, multidisciplinary research.
This vision is further strengthened by my solid foundation in geodetic computations, Engineering Surveying skills such as vertical control methods, Network adjustment computations, and reality capture techniques such as UAV and terrestrial LiDAR and photogrammetry. I am particularly motivated to support GNSS control station densification and implement Network RTK corrections to enhance local geodetic networks. These systems will serve as critical infrastructure for surveying, civil engineering, construction planning, agricultural technology, and geospatial domains.
Geodesy and Geospatial Engineering are indispensable in understanding the Earth system. GNSS positioning, at the heart of geodetic science, provides essential tools for observing environmental changes and developing sustainable solutions, aligning with my mission to educate and mentor the next generation of engineers and scientists at Cal Poly.
Specializations:
- Precision surveying for engineering and infrastructure
- GNSS positioning and multi-GNSS measurement/observation, post-processing and time series analysis
- InSAR and SAR-based deformation monitoring
- Geodetic control networks and adjustment computations
- GNSS Network RTK
- UAV/terrestrial LiDAR and photogrammetry
- Reality capture and 3D modeling
- GIS/BIM integration for smart cities
- Geospatial applications in agriculture and environmental monitoring
- Remote sensing-based crop monitoring using spectral and structural indicators (e.g., yield, nutrient status, and stress conditions)