Dr Helen Mair Rawsthorne

73 avenue de Paris · 94165 Saint-Mandé CEDEX ·

I was a PhD student in Computer Science: Sciences and Technologies of Geographic Information between 2020 and 2023, and sucessfully defended my PhD thesis on 15 January 2024
LASTIG, Université Gustave Eiffel, IGN-ENSG
Member of the STRUDEL research team

My PhD thesis aimed at exploring the potential of automatically extracting geographic information from texts in order to create a georeferenced knowledge base. This involved extracting, typing and disambiguating information about topographical entities described by texts (type of geographic entity, names, spatial relationships with other entities) and then structuring them according to an ontological model. This allowed checking the consistency of the extracted information, inferring new facts and responding to queries on the modelled environment. The corpus that I used to carry out this work was composed of the Instructions nautiques, a series of published by the French Naval Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service (Shom) that describe the maritime environment and how to navigate in coastal waters.

Director : Cécile Duchêne
Co-director : Éric Saux
Supervisors : Nathalie Abadie et Eric Kergosien

This project was co-financed by the Shom and the IGN.

Professional experience

  • January 2025 - present

    Data Scientist - Semantic Specialist, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Lancaster, UK

  • November 2023 - October 2024

    Research Assistant, Mines Saint-Étienne, France

  • November 2020 - October 2023

    PhD Student, Université Gustave Eiffel, Champs-sur-Marne, France

  • February - July 2020

    Research Intern, Centre François Viète, Brest, France

    I carried out a research project on the processing and analysis of historical bathymetric and sedimentary data obtained during a hydrographic campaign in the 18th century in the Bay of Biscay. This work was carried out within the Nouvelle Aquitaine et Outre-Mers regional programme during a 6-month internship with the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme d’Aquitaine, the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire en histoire, histoire de l’art et musicologie at the University of Poitiers and the Shom.

  • May - July & September - December 2019

    Research Intern, Centre François Viète, Brest, France

    I contributed to a research project aiming to identify and bring together local actors in the field of maritime heritage, evaluate their current use of and their needs in terms of digital humanities.

  • October 2017 - June 2018

    English Conversation Assistant, Valencia, Spain

    I assisted in the English classes of school students between 3 and 18 years old, held English conversation classes for the teachers and gave private English tutoring and conversation classes outside of school to children and adults.

Education

Gustave Eiffel University, Champs-sur-Marne, France

PhD in Computer Science
Specialised in Geographic Information Sciences and Technologies
November 2020 - October 2023

University of Western Brittany, Brest, France

Master's degree in Epistemology, History of Science and Technology
Specialised in Cultural History of Science and Technology, Digital Humanities and Mediation
September 2018 - September 2020

University of Bristol, UK

Bachelor's degree in Physics
October 2013 - July 2017

Publications

[ACL] Journal articles
[ACLN] Journals
[ASCL] Others
[ACTI] International conferences with proceedings
[ACTN] National conferences with proceedings
[COM] Conferences without proceedings
[OS] Books and Chapters
[DO] Books and Chapters
[AFF] Posters
[AP] Preprints
[TH] Dissertations
[INV] Invited Talks
[PV] Popularisation

Teaching

2022-2023
  • Module "Projet tutoré", Licence professionnelle, ENSG, April 2023 (6 hours)
    • Presentation preparation and oral communication coaching (6 hours)
  • Module "Projet d'initiation à la recherche (PIR)", Cycle ingénieur en géomatique, 2ème année, ENSG, janvier 2023 (15 hours)
    • Presentation preparation and oral communication coaching (12 hours)
    • Jury member for the vivas (3 hours)
  • Module "Web sémantique géographique", M2 TSI, ENSG, November 2022 (15 hours)
    • Lecture: "Du Web documentaire au Web de données : publier, décrire et manipuler des données sur le Web" (3 hours)
    • Practical session: "Négociation de contenu et requêtes SPARQL" (3 hours)
    • Lecture & practical session: "Des mots et du sens : nommer et décrire les types et les propriétés des ressources à l’aide de vocabulaires RDFS et OWL" (1.5 hours & 1.5 hours)
    • Lecture & practical session: "Des systèmes d’information géographique au Web de données géographiques" (1.5 hours & 1.5 hours)
    • Practical session: "Interconnexion de données sur le Web" (1.5 hours)
    • Evaluation (1.5 hours)
  • Module "Modélisation et manipulation de l'information géographique", M2 IGAST, ENSG, October 2022 (9 hours)
    • Practical session: "Intro PostGIS" (6 hours)
    • Lecture: "Manipuler des données géoréférencées dans un SIG : Georéférencement avec QGIS" (3 hours)
2021-2022
  • Module "Projet tutoré", Licence professionnelle, ENSG, May 2022 (6 hours)
    • Presentation preparation and oral communication coaching (6 hours)
  • Module "Projet d'initiation à la recherche (PIR)", Cycle ingénieur en géomatique, 2ème année, ENSG, January 2022 (18 hours)
    • Presentation preparation and oral communication coaching (12 hours)
    • Obervation and evaluation of the viva jurys (6 hours)
  • Module "Web sémantique géographique", M2 TSI, ENSG, December 2021 (13.5 hours, co-taught with Nathalie Abadie)
    • Lecture: "Du Web documentaire au Web de données : publier, décrire et manipuler des données sur le Web" (3 hours)
    • Practical session: "Négociation de contenu et requêtes SPARQL" (3 hours)
    • Lecture & practical session: "Des mots et du sens : nommer et décrire les types et les propriétés des ressources à l’aide de vocabulaires RDFS et OWL" (1.5 hours & 1.5 hours)
    • Lecture & practical session: "Des systèmes d’information géographique au Web de données géographiques" (1.5 hours & 1.5 hours)
    • Practical session: "Interconnexion de données sur le Web" (1.5 hours)
2020-2021
  • Creation of a chapter for the "English: Step-up your geomatics vocabulary" MOOC, ENSG, 2021
    • "An introduction to Digital Humanities" video
    • "An 18th Century Hydrographic Campaign: studying historical data" video
    • "An 18th Century Hydrographic Campaign: diffusing research" video
    • Evaluation quiz

Other research activities

Supervision
  • Co-supervision of a pair of students (École navale) working on a project entitled "Apprentissage profond pour la construction d’une base de connaissances multilingue à partir des Sailing Directions", August-November 2022
  • Co-supervision of a group of 5 students (M2 TSI, ENSG) working on a project entitled "Développement d'une plateforme pour l’interrogation d’une base de connaissances géoréférencées sur l’environnement maritime côtier", March-April 2022


Organisational responsabilities
  • Co-organisation of the first LASTIG Young Researchers Day, May 2022
  • Co-organisation of the poster session for the 30th IGN-ENSG Reseach Days, May 2021


Participation in events
  • Participation in the Python4NLP summer school, Nancy, May 2022
  • Participation in the 5th edition of the Ocean Hackathon, La Rochelle, October 2020
  • Scientific advisor for the restoration of the Shom's tide prediction machine, 2020
  • Participation in the EnExDi winter school on digital humanities, Poitiers, February 2020


Awards and nominations