Team PESSL

Dr. Christina Pilz, Product manager for camera solutions and team lead

I started working for PESSL in November 2014, while being responsible for the Decision Support Systems in Plant Health Management (Disease models and Camera Products). Previous to Pessl's career, I collected professional experience particularly in the biology and microbiological control of agricultural pest insects, having studied agriculture at the University of Agriculture and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna and working, at the Research Station Agroscope in Zürich as well as at the Plant Protection Service in Hungary and at the Agency for Health and Food Security, Austria. At PESSL I started by supporting the development of disease model implementations and since around four years my focus lay also on electronically monitoring devices of pest insects in viticulture, agriculture, and fruit production.

M.Sc. Daniel Scheidl, Product developer

Since 2015 I have been working at PESSL, doing the 3D modeling and prototyping of new PESSL products. From weather stations to trap systems, our portfolio has increased over the years, and also have the challenges to bring a useful, simple, cost-effective product design to the end-user. At my Masters in environmental system sciences, at the University of Graz (Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change), I developed automated quality control routines for meteorological data from the WegenerNet climate observation network. Since 2013 I am frequently employed at the Wegener Center for projects in which I further improve and implement quality control algorithms. 

Damir Najvirt, Machine learning engineer

I studied physics, specializing in stochastic processes and their role in the development of financial markets at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Maribor, Slovenia. I have been working for PESSL since 2016, where I developed image processing solutions for our camera products and automated systems for fruits and insects recognition. I am responsible for designing, evaluating, and enhancing our machine learning stack. I am especially passionate about the transformation of data into valuable information that, in turn, guides farmers all over the world. 

David Muriuki Karibe, HW & FW developer

I studied applied physics, specializing in microprocessor technologies and instrumentation at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. I have more than ten years of experience in embedded systems design, partly teaching practical courses at the university and partially implementing commercial products. I have attended specialized training in sensor instrumentation, signal conditioning, and computational physics. I enjoy tinkering with hardware, building custom systems, and solving technical problems. Here at PESSL, I am responsible for the firmware development of cameras and other attachment devices used for the detection and monitoring of crops and pests by farmers. It is such a pleasure to know that the technologies we develop are helping farmers solve real-life problems and boost food production. 

 Eva Munda, Entomologist assistant

My entomology career started when I was about five years old and breeding mosquitoes in the living room. My parents were not amused, but I learned a lot about the life cycle of a mosquito. It was only a natural decision for me to study ecology and nature conservation at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Maribor. I started to work for Pessl instruments in June 2021 as an Entomological assistant, with the main focus on insect identification. In my free time, I like to cook, paint, and spend some time in nature hiking, mushrooming, or birdwatching.

M.Sc. Junia Rojic, Project support officer

At PESSL, I am responsible for all the administrative tasks related to projects, including among other proposals, reports, deliverables, time schedules, meetings, minutes, and budget control. I studied Industrial Engineering at the Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil, recognized in Austria as a Masters's degree in Materials Science. With more than 12 years of experience in Project Management, including many years in Brazil working at R&D and IT companies, I am delighted to be part of a European Project, with many important stakeholders, and most importantly, supporting agriculture and food production in the 21st century. In my free time I do sports, like volleyball and indoor football, but also enjoy spending some time reading and in nature hiking.

M.Sc. Mario Höfler, Product manager for digital solutions

With an M.Sc. in Telematics and more than 15 years of software development experience in the fields of computer vision, computer graphics, machine learning, and lately agriculture, I am proud to be part of PESSL's team since November 2016. Previously, I worked 9 years on developing photogrammetric processing pipelines and aerial triangulation systems at Microsoft and co-founded a machine learning start-up. With PESSL, the journey started in the software team, transitioned to technical and strategic partnership topics, mostly software related, and later resulted in the products team, where digital solutions for our clients is my main focus area. 

Marko Zorman, Head of software development

I have been working for PESSL since 2012 and was responsible for the transition to a new hardware and software platform enabling a steady growth in performance and network traffic. Currently, as head of the software development department, I am responsible for the coordination of back-end and front-end development and server administration. With more than 15 years of experience in Web development projects, working as a full-stack developer for various companies, I am overjoyed with the opportunity to lead a team of professionals working for the future of agriculture. 

Murilo Costa, Full-stack engineer

As a software developer, I am responsible for the back-end and front-end implementation at PESSL. With a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from Pontifical Catholic University of Goiás, Brazil, I am proud to have more than 10 years of professional experience developing enterprise-level software and SaaS (Software as a Service) using Java and NodeJS, 5 years of experience with IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) using the AWS platform, and 5 years of experience with mobile application development using Android, Ionic and React Native platforms.