Members

Mike Daly, Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering, Lassonde School of Engineering, was awarded a Tier 2 York Research Chair in Planetary Science in recognition of his outstanding contribution to space-flight instrumentation research at York. The York Research Chair will enable Daly’s participation in NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and the return of Canada’s first sample of material from another solar system.

Professor John Moores is the Associate Dean, Research & Graduate Studies of the Lassonde School of Engineering and an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering.
Dr. Moores holds a PhD from the University of Arizona in Planetary Science (2008) and is a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. He has published 84 papers which have attracted over 7,000 citations (Google Scholar). His research straddles the divide between science and engineering to explore our solar system and the atmospheres of other planets. In this capacity he serves as the Director of the Technologies for Exo/Planetary Science NSERC CREATE Network and has held the York Research Chair in Space Exploration since 2019.
As the Associate Dean, Research & Graduate Studies, Professor Moores oversees research matters and the graduate programs at Lassonde.
Research Lab
Planetary Volatiles Laboratory
Location: PSE 242

Dr. Yongsheng Chen completed a PhD degree at McGill and a postdoctoral research position with the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). He has been an active developer of advanced numerical modeling and data assimilation systems. He has been utilizing state-of-the-art numerical models and ensemble-based data assimilation techniques to improve weather forecasts, regional climate predictions, and air quality forecasts.
Research Lab
Severe Weather Research Lab
Petrie 249
Research Interests
Data assimilation and numerical modeling
Mesoscale dynamics and severe weather
Regional climate modeling
Air-quality modeling
Upper atmosphere modeling

Dr. James Whiteway is a Professor at York University, Director of the Center for Research in Earth and Space Science (CRESS), and was previously a faculty member at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth. He has a Ph.D. in Physics from York University and a B.Sc. in Engineering Physics from Queen’s University.
Research Interests

Professor Whiteway investigates the atmospheres on Earth and Mars. The work involves the development and application of laser remote sensing technology.
Mars:
Professor Whiteway led a team of Canadian scientists in discovering snow falling from Martian clouds. The observations were made with an instrument called the LIDAR on the spacecraft for the NASA Phoenix mission that landed on Mars in 2008. The LIDAR instrument was based on the development of laser remote sensing within Prof. Whiteway’s laboratory at York University. It emitted pulses of laser light into the Martian sky, measuring dust and clouds composed of water ice. The clouds were observed to have streaks extending toward the ground. That view was immediately familiar to Prof. Whiteway since LIDAR measurements of precipitation look the same on Earth.
The Phoenix Mars mission is finished, but the work continues in an environmental chamber that simulates the conditions on the surface of Mars. The next generation of the Mars LIDAR will be directed at the surface of Mars to detect the deposition of water and this is being tested in a chamber that simulates the environment on Mars. Scientific progress is already being made with the finding that water can condense out of the atmosphere onto salts on the surface of Mars.
Earth:
Professor Whiteway’s Earth based research involves the development and application of laser remote sensing to study processes in the atmosphere that play a role in determining climate and air quality. A lidar system for measurements of atmospheric ozone, clouds and aerosol, has been built for installation on various aircraft. This has recently been installed on the Polar-5 aircraft (DC-3) and on the Amundsen icebreaker ship for measurements of the impact of sea ice on air chemistry and ozone. Another recent field campaign has involved installing the lidar on a Twin Otter aircraft for measurements of air pollution form the oil sands industry in northern Alberta.
Previous research projects with aircraft have involved the study of the clouds and dynamics in the upper level anvil outflow from tropical convection, and also the atmospheric waves and turbulence generated by the flow of air over mountains.

Mark Gordon studies the emission, deposition and transport of chemicals, pollutants, aerosols and particles to and from a variety of locations, including industrial facilities, road traffic, forests, arctic environments, and the atmospheres of other planets. Current studies include emissions and mixing of pollutants from city and highway traffic; emissions from oil sands production facilities; and the interaction of pollutants with forest environments and mixing within the forest canopy.

Prior to joining York in 2014, Dr. Gordon worked for five years as a physical scientist and post-doctorate researcher in the Air Quality department of Environment Canada. Studies at Environment Canada included an airborne measurement campaign over the Alberta Oil Sands, a traffic-pollutant measurement study on Highway 400 and a study of aerosol and VOC emissions in a mixed forest at the Borden Forest Research Station. Dr. Gordon has also worked as a researcher at Trent University, studying wind-induced transport of sand particles, and at York University, studying blowing snow in the Arctic.
Research Lab
Air Pollution Lab
Location: Petrie 433

Gary Klaassen joined York University in 1986 after an Advanced Study Program Postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. He has a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Atmospheric Physics from the University of Toronto and a B.Sc. in Physics from University of Waterloo.

Research Interests

Dr. Klaassen’s major research interests are in wave dynamics, stratified shear flows, the transition to turbulence, cloud dynamics and mesoscale meteorology. A variety of theoretical and numerical models are being employed to study the evolution and stability of nonlinear disturbances in the atmosphere. The goal is to improve our understanding the complex nature of small-scale flows, and their interactions with the larger scales associated and weather and climate systems.

Professor Charles Thomas (Tom) McElroy got his Ph.D. degree from York University. He holds his B.Sc and M.Sc degree, from University of Toronto. He has been a visiting Research Professor at Denver University and the Technical Assistant to the Manager of the Canadian Astronaut Program. After a 36-year career with Environment Canada, he took up the CSA/ABB/NSERC Industrial Research Chair from 2011- 2015, at York University. McElroy has published 135 refereed journal papers and book chapters and has received numerous national and international awards. He is a co-inventor of the Brewer Ozone Spectrophotometer and the UV Index, now in use in more than 25 countries.

Research Interests

Space-based remote sounding of the atmosphere

Peter Taylor has been a Professor of Atmospheric Science at York University since 1988. He currently works most of his time with York but also with Zephyr North, a Burlington wind energy consultancy. Prior to 1988 he was a senior research scientist with Environment Canada and had taught Mathematics at University of Toronto and Physical Oceanography at the University of Southampton (UK). He is a Fellow of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and was awarded the Patterson Distinguished Service Medal (for 1998) “For distinguished service to Meteorology in Canada”. He has been a member of the Editorial Board, Boundary-Layer Meteorology since 1971 and served as Co-Chief Editor from 1995-2010.
Peter works in a variety of atmospheric boundary layer studies using a range of numerical models, analyzing data and conducting field programs. Peter has a long standing interest in renewable energy research and way back in 1982/83 he led the Askervein hill study (on S. Uist, Scotland) which remains a widely used data set for testing models of flow over hills. Much of his current research is focused on marine fog, sound propagation in the atmospheric boundary layer and sub-seasonal weather forecasting
Other Information:
Directed the Educational Video, Wind Energy in Canada, available free on request (pat@yorku.ca) as a DVD.

Research Interests

Boundary-Layer Meteorology
Weather
Climate

Dr. Baoxin Hu was appointed to a faculty position in Geomatics Engineering in 2003 and before that she worked as a visiting fellow at the Canadian Space Agency. Since her appointment to York University in 2003, Dr. Hu has led several airborne missions involving LiDAR and hyperspectral instruments, field campaigns, and collaborative research projects to develop algorithms to characterize vegetation canopies from multi-source remotely sensed data. Dr. Hu has extensive experience with the processing and analysis of various types of remotely sensed data including RADARSAT-2 data, 3D scene reconstruction and DEM generation from different data sources, and the characterization of vegetation canopies and wetland ecosystems.

Research Lab
Earth Observation Laboratory
Location: Petrie 318, Petrie 432

Dr. Costas Armenakis (Dipl Ing, MScE, PhD) is Professor of Geomatics Engineering, Dept. of Earth & Space Science & Engineering, Lassonde School of Engineering. He joined York University in 2007, after 17 years as a research scientist with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). He has over 40 years of research experience in photogrammetry, remote sensing and GIS, working on the acquisition, handling, processing and management of geo-spatial data and information from terrestrial, aerial and space-borne sensors.
He is an ISPRS Fellow and served as President of the ISPRS Technical Commission IV on Digital Mapping and GeoDatabases (2000-2004). Currently, he is co-chair of the ISPRS ICWG I/Vb Unmanned Vehicle Systems (UVS): Sensors and Applications. He is a Professional Engineer registered in the Province of Ontario and a member of the Canadian Institute of Geomatics, the Canadian Remote Sensing Society and the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
He is a Review Editor in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs and UAVs) (Frontiers in Remote Sensing), an Associate Editor of Journal of Unmanned Vehicle Systems and GEOMATICA. He’s a member of the Editorial Board, Drones Journal. He’s a Guest editor of Special Issue of the Journal of Unmanned Vehicle Systems on UAV for Geomatics and Guest co-editor of Special Issue, Drones Journal on UAS orientation and navigation.

Research Labs
GeoICT – Mobile Sensing and Mapping
Locations: Petrie 312, Petrie 429

Gordon G. Shepherd was born in Saskatchewan and obtained his BSc and MSc degrees at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and his PhD at the University of Toronto in 1956. He was Assistant and then Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Saskatchewan from 1957 to 1969, where he conducted ground-based and rocket studies of the aurora. In 1969 Dr. Shepherd became Professor of Physics at York University in Toronto, where he was Principal Investigator of the Red Line Photometer for the ISIS-II spacecraft, launched in 1971. Dr. Shepherd is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute. During 1991- 93 he was the recipient of a Killam Fellowship. In 1999 he was elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and in 2003 the Canadian Space Agency awarded him the John H. Chapman Award of Excellence. More recently he received the SCOSTEP Distinguished Research Scientist Award and the COSPAR William Nordberg Medal. About thirty M.Sc. and thirty Ph.D. students have completed their degrees under his direction. His second satellite mission, WINDII, the Wind Imaging Interferometer on NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was launched in 1991, operated until 2003 and is still producing scientific publications, the most recent three in 2021. It was based on his concept of a field-widened Michelson interferometer that acquired more than 20 million images of winds in the upper atmosphere, providing a unique description of winds in the upper atmosphere.

Awards & Recognitions
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Fellow of the American Geophysical Union
Fellow of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute
Recipient of the John H. Chapman Award of Excellence (CSA)
SCOSTEP Distinguished Research Scientist award
COSPAR William Nordberg Medal

Research Interests
3D Urban Space Modelling and Augmentation
Photogrammetric Computer Vision
Geometric Remote Sensing
Web and Wireless GIS
Building Information Modelling

Dr. Isaac B. Smith joined the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University in August 2018 as an Assistant Professor of Earth and Space Science, where he holds a Canada Research Chair in Planetary Science. Prior to joining York University, he was a Research Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Lakewood, Colorado. After completing his Ph.D. in Geosciences in 2013 at the University of Texas at Austin, he received a Fulbright Fellowship to work at Sorbonne University in Paris France for one year. He also completed one post-doc at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. His research interests involve ice on Mars, especially related to present and recent climate. Dr. Smith’s office is PSE 110.
At Lassonde, Dr. Smith intends to continue his ongoing research and add laboratory and field components in his study of ice processes and behaviour. For fieldwork, he is developing a program that will study permafrost features and morphology in the Canadian Arctic and relate the analogue landforms to permafrost features found on Mars. In the lab, he aims to constraint the rheological properties of CO2 ice to study its behaviour as glaciers and albedo effects of CO2 ice as it sinters dues to incident solar radiation. Working with other ices, such as N2 and CH4, two common ices on Pluto, are longer-term goals.

Research Lab
Ice Lab
Location: Petrie, PSE 403
We simulate conditions at Mars’ poles in order to learn about the processes acting on Mars. We also measure the dielectric properties of Martian analogue materials.

Dr.-Ing. Jianguo Wang has been a faculty member in the Department of Earth and Space Science Engineering in Toronto, Canada since 2006 and a founding member of Lassonde School of Engineering of York University. He is a member of Professional Engineers Ontario of Canada and a Fellow of Engineers Canada. He worked as Senior Navigation Engineer at Applanix Corp. (A Trimble Company) from 1999 to 2006, and was faculty member as Assistant Lecturer, Lecturer at Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping (WTUSM) from 1982 to 1993 (promoted to Associate Professor in 1992, declined). Prior to this, he obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Surveying Engineering from WTUSM, and his Dr.-Ing. in Geomatics Engineering from University of The Federal Armed Forces Munich (Universität der Bundeswher München), Germany. With more than 35 years of academic and industrial experience in Canada, China, and Germany, he has been teaching different undergraduate and graduate courses (UNDERGRADUATE: Fundamentals of Surveying, Field Surveys, Geodetic Concepts, Geodetic Surveys, Advanced Field Surveys, Adjustment Calculus, Analysis of Overdetermined Systems, GNSS, Global Geophysics and Geodesy and GRADUATE: Advanced Optimization and Applications, Advanced Satellite Positioning etc.). His current research interests focus on multisensor integrated kinematic positioning and navigation, GNSS, precision Engineering Surveying and advanced data processing methodologies. He has authored and co-authored more than 60 publications (papers, book chapters and books).

Research Lab
Earth Observation Laboratory (Dr. Baoxin Hu)
Location: PSE 432
Multisensor (GNSS receivers/IMUs/Cameras/LiDAR/Indoor beacons/Magnetometers) integrated kinematic positioning and navigation

Dr. Jinjun Shan is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of dynamics, control and navigation. He joined York University as an Assistant Professor of Space Engineering in 2006 and was promoted to Full Professor in 2016. Prior to his appointment in York, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) in 2003-2006 and a Research Assistant at the Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management (MEEM), City University of Hong Kong, in 2002-2003. He received his B.Eng., M.Eng., and Ph.D. degrees all from Harbin Institute of Technology, China, in 1997, 1999, and 2002, respectively. Dr. Shan has made outstanding contributions to several national and international space missions including the NEOSSat.
He has attracted over $5 million in research funding from various governmental agencies and industry partners. His research progress is demonstrated through over 190 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications and 2 issued patents. Dr. Shan’s accomplishments in research and engineering education have seen him recognized with prestigious recognitions such as the Fellow of Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), the Fellow of American Astronautical Society (AAS), the Associate Fellow of AIAA, Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, JSPS Fellowship, York Research Leader Awards, and Excellent in Teaching Award. He serves the profession as the Associate Editor for several field-leading journals including IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, and the Journal of Franklin Institute, as well as numerous conference chairs. He is the founding director of Spacecraft Dynamics Control and Navigation Laboratory (SDCNLab) at York University. He has served as the Department Chair since January 2018.

Research Interests
Dynamics, Control, and Navigation
Autonomous Systems
Multi-agent Systems
Smart Materials and Structures
Space Instrumentation
Active Vibration Control

Prof. Regina Lee, PhD, PEng, Professor of Space Engineering has led numerous projects in the area of satellite technologies including the design of micro-sensors and actuators, micro-spectrometer development, solar panel technology demonstration and attitude control design for nanosatellites. Her research focuses on application of micro-systems technologies in satellite design in close partnership with a number of industry and government research partners including DRDC, Honeywell, Magellan and MSCI.
Research Lab
PSE010
York Microfabrication Facility (YMF)

Research Interests
Nanosatellite technologies
Space object tracking

Dr. Ryan Orszulik joined York University as an Assistant Professor in Engineering Design in 2019. After receiving his Ph.D., he was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute of Mechanics at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. Following that he was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Harvard Microrobotics Lab in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
Dr. Orszulik’s previous research includes active vibration control, membrane control for a synthetic aperture radar antenna, and a flight-qualified nanometer-level positioning system. These research topics all originate from the core theme of his research, which is to exploit the vast potential of smart materials, in particular piezoelectrics and shape memory alloys, in applications from instrumentation to structures. In particular, he is interested in the intelligent design of robotic and mechatronic systems through the development of dynamic models, the discovery of new fabrication techniques, and the use of advanced control.

Research labs
PSE 425

Dr. Sunil Bisnath is a Full Professor in the Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering at York University in Toronto, Canada. He has over 25 years of experience working with GNSS. His research centres on precise GNSS-focussed positioning and navigation. Previous to York University, Professor Bisnath held the positions of geodesist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Boston, Massachusetts and assistant research scientist at the University of Southern Mississippi, NASA Stennis Space Center, Mississippi. He holds an Honours B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Surveying Science from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering from the University of New Brunswick.
Over his career, he has developed GNSS Precise Point Positioning (PPP) measurement processing algorithms, studied GNSS-based plate tectonics, applied atmospheric refraction models to marine GNSS positioning, developed GNSS-reflectometry receivers and inversion algorithms, assessed the performance of PPP and network real-time kinematic (RTK)-based positioning systems, high performance and low-cost positioning, and navigation and timing (PNT) sensor fusion for resilient PNT, amongst other research.
During his current tenure, Dr. Bisnath has worked with and received research funding from many entities, including: NSERC, CFI, Canadian Space Agency, European GNSS Agency, Ministry of Transportation of Ontario, Honeywell Aerospace, Sapcorda Services.

Research Lab
Global Navigation Satellite System Laboratory
Location: Petrie, PSE 435
The GNSS lab at York University does cutting edge research related to various topics such as navigation solution development with cm-level accuracy (PPP) , integration of low-cost inertial navigation systems such as MEMS IMUs with GNSS receiver chips, implementation of a FPGA-based software GNSS receiver and research for the development of a reflectometry instrument.

Zheng Hong (George) Zhu is the Director of the Space Engineering Design Laboratory at the Lassonde School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research interests touch on a number of topics including the dynamics and control of tethered spacecraft systems, electrodynamic tether propulsion and space debris removal, space robotics and advanced spacecraft materials.

Research Interests
Dynamics and Control of Tethered Spacecraft System and Space Robotics
Electrodynamic Tether Propulsion and Space Debris Removal
Computational Mechanics and Finite Element Method
Multi-functional Materials
Additive Manufacturing in Space

Dr. Alidad Amirfazli’s current research is in surface engineering and understanding droplet surface interactions to develop platform technologies for diverse areas of applications, e.g. water management in fuel cells, anti-icing systems for wind turbine/aircrafts printing technology, application of pesticides, spray cooling, additive manufacturing and related instrumentation.
His extensive international collaborations include research in Italy, Germany, Belgium and Spain. He has been the Canada Research Chair in Surface Engineering and has earned the rare distinction of having twice received NSERC’s DAS Grant. Amongst his past distinctions are appointment as a Killiam Annual Professor and the Martha Cook Piper Research Prize.
Among many activities before Lassonde, Amirfazli helped found the Energy Club, a student group engaged with the broader community to promote sustainability and energy information at the University of Alberta. At the same time he co-taught—with instructors from Law, Economics, and Science—a groundbreaking interdisciplinary energy course, that aligns closely with the Renaissance Engineering™ concept at Lassonde.
Professor Amirfazli has served at the Board of Examiners for Professional Engineering body in Alberta (APEGA), and has been a consultant to many companies (local and multinational). He has served on various funding agencies’ review boards.

Dr. Roger Kempers earned his B.Eng. and M.A.Sc. degrees in Mechanical Engineering at McMaster University and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.Prior to joining the Lassonde School of Engineering, he was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Nokia (formerly Alcatel-Lucent), where he led the R&D of advanced thermal management technologies for telecommunications hardware. Previously, Dr. Kempers worked as a Research Engineer at Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs Ireland, where his activities ranged from fundamental research to technology development, licensing and product integration.His research interests lie primarily in the area of thermal-fluid sciences and are multi-disciplined in nature, geared towards the advancement of heat transport, exchange and conversion technologies to help address the world’s energy challenges.Dr. Kempers is also a thermofluids & heat transfer consultant and is the founding director of the Advanced Thermofluids & Heat Transfer Research Lab (TF-LAB) at the Lassonde School of Engineering, York University.

Research Interests
Fundamental and Applied Two-Phase Flow & Heat Transfer
Thermal Energy Transport, Exchange, & Conversion Technology Development
Advanced Cooling of Electronic Devices & Systems
High Performance Thermal and Electrical Interface Materials
Thermal Materials Characterization
Additive Manufacturing of Composite Materials for Heat Transfer Applications

Dr. Michael C.F. Bazzocchi is an Assistant Professor at York University (Toronto, Canada) and the Director of the Astronautics and Robotics Laboratory (ASTRO Lab). He is also a Research Associate Professor at Clarkson University (NY, USA).

Previously, Dr. Bazzocchi held positions at the University of Toronto (Canada) in Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, the Institute for Robotics and Mechatronics, the Toronto Institute of Advanced Manufacturing, and the Institute for Aerospace Studies. He was a researcher in Onboard Space Systems at Luleå University of Technology (Sweden). Dr. Bazzocchi also worked for the RHEA Group as a spacecraft concurrent design engineer on the Canadian Space Agency satCODE (satellite concurrent design) project.

In addition to his work in aerospace engineering, Dr. Bazzocchi enjoys volunteer work—he is the Founder and President of the Trek for Teens Foundation (a charity that supports homeless youth), and is actively involved in various educational, social justice, and leadership-based charities.