Work history

I started school in 1985 in Joensuu (a town in easternmost Finland). In a way, I'm still in school, only the institutions have changed. Like all things in my life, school has gone like climbing the stairs. Long times have gone and nothing has happened, and then all the changes have happened during a very short time.

First years in school were like drinking tar. But after the first couple of years, I began to like it. I actually enjoyed high school (in finnish: lukio), because you could actually use your brains in there... And of course teachers had something to do with it too.

After finishing high school I was a little confused with my future plans. I thought that I wanted to study business, and tried to pass the entrance examination to economics. I failed and went to study business at lower education level (not academic). After a year I decided that business was not my field. I made a full U-turn in my life and took the entrance examination for geography. I got in, and from that day I have been studying earth and life sciences. And I haven't regretted that decision.

First I was interested in human geography, but then I started to slip towards older and older things, little by little. First physical geography with interest for global warming, then my interest switched to Holocene (last 10 000 years). Then I changed my main subject to geology and paleontology, with interest of quaternary (the last 2,5 million years). Then I ended up doing paleontological research on Neogene (last 25 Million years).

I defended my dissertation (titled: Eurasian Neogene large herbivorous mammals and climate) on 22.8.2006. In my thesis I investigated the climate and the dynamics, structure and evolution of herbivorous mammal communities 23-1.8 Ma ago. My interest was on the climatic processes and their effect on mammal ecology and distribution in the past environments. In my work I used the fossil mammal database NOW , which is maintained in Helsinki. I am also involved in the maintenance of the NOW database.