Dr. Veli-Pekka Kivinen (born 1966) has worked as a research assistant, project researcher, and university lecturer at the Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki since 1993. He has participated in several forest technology R&D projects dealing with, among others, pre-harvest measurement of forest stands, forest visualization and optimal wood allocation and tree bucking. His PhD thesis “Design and testing of stand-specific bucking instructions for use on modern cut-to-length harvesters” was awarded as the best thesis defended during 2007 at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki. The thesis was also awarded the prize for the best doctoral thesis of the year 2007 in forest sciences by the Finnish Society of Forest Science. Kivinen has authored and co-authored 30 publications of which 10 are peer-reviewed scientific articles. He has also programmed two commercial computer software packages (EMO pre-harvest measurement program and Smartforest 3D forest visualizer) and several non-commercial computer applications in the field of bucking optimization.