HOME /

Research Group Members

Current Members

Richard Kelly
Richard Kelly (Group Leader) has 28 years of research into microwave remote sensing of snow and ice using satellite, airborne and ground-based observations. He has worked at the University of London, NASA and the University of Waterloo. He has collaborated on research projects with colleagues from NASA, ESA, CSA, JAXA and various government and university partners in Europe and North America. He is currently the PI of the CryoSAR airborne observatory and the JAXA global snow mass product.  He leads a group of graduate students and postdocs with interests in snow, ice and water storage on land. He has been Department Chair and an Associate Dean Research and is an avid Arsenal supporter.
Zeinab Akhavan
Zeinab Akhavan is currently pursuing a PhD degree in remote sensing science. Her research interests are in the use of polarimetric SAR, and InSAR analysis from airborne and spaceborne data for monitoring soil conditions and snow in cold regions. In recent years, her research has expanded to incorporate machine learning in image processing techniques with a specific emphasis on soil moisture monitoring. Zeinab actively participated in the CryoSAR field project during the fall of 2022 and winter of 2023. Additionally, she is a volunteer member of the Women Mentoring Women program of the IEEE GRSS Inspire, Develop, Empower, and Advance (IDEA) Committee.
Research interests: L-band airborne SAR remote sensing of snow and soil from the CryoSAR
photo
Jiayi Du majored in geomatics as an undergraduate and is currently pursuing a MSc degree in remote sensing. Her research focuses on snow mapping from passive microwave brightness temperatures with machine learning approach. Her research interests include microwave remote sensing of snow, snow parameter retrieval and application of machine learning in remote sensing.
Research interests: Evaluation of machine learning methods applied to satellite passive microwave snow cover extent.
Photo
Margot Flemming is a PhD student studying the use of geostatistical methods to downscale coarse resolution snow water equivalent estimates for localized hydrological and climatological applications. She has a BSc from Wilfrid Laurier university and a MSc from university of Waterloo. She is also a volunteer with the Inspire, Develop, Empower, and Advance (IDEA) committee as the lead of the Women Mentoring Women Program, which aims to empower women in geoscience and remote sensing around the world. 
Research Interests: Downscaling global satellite observations of snow mass.
Q Li
Qinghuan Li is a research associate with expertise in remote sensing applications for cold regions. With experience at both the University of Waterloo and CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences), his research includes snow mass mapping, sea ice observation, and the study of climate change in Arctic regions. He has actively contributed to research projects funded by JAXA, CAS, and FMI. Currently, his research is centered on exploring microwave physical interactions with vegetation and snow, as well as its applications in global snow mass mapping.
Research Interests: Remote sensing applications in cold regions.
photo
Akash Senthilkumaran is currently pursuing his MSc in Remote Sensing. He hails from an engineering background with a major in Civil Engineering and a minor in Computer Applications from NIT-Trichy, India. Akash's research focuses on developing innovative methods to quantify the water balance of the Gundar River Basin, located in Tamilnadu, India. To achieve this, he leverages optical remote sensing image data and integrates them with machine learning and process-based models, and visualization techniques.
Research Interests:  land cover change within the Gundar basin and its impact on basin-wide evapotranspiration.
 
Photo
Vicky Vanthof is a PhD student in the Geography & Water collaborative program at UW. Her research exploits big data analytics with remote sensing data to evaluate water availability in reservoir-dominated regions over large spatial scales. The work focuses on small-holder irrigation reservoirs in South India to better understand their hydrological role and future use. She is a former recipient of the Hugh C. Morris fellowship which facilitated multidisciplinary connections between scientists who produce, evaluate and apply remote sensing information and the decision-making end-users (managers and stakeholders). She is the co-chair of the Inspire, Develop, Empower, and Advance (IDEA) committee, which seeks to improve belonging and inclusion within the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society. Her other interests include DIY furniture repair, yoga, and getting lost hiking in beautiful places.
Research Interests: Satellite remote sensing of rainwater harvesting tank systems.
 
Wei Wang
Wei Wang completed his MSc at the University of Waterloo, working with FMCW wide band radar data from Trail Valley Creek and microwave snow depth retrieval. He is currently doing a PhD working on Ku-band radar snow depth / SWE retrieval with data collected by the CryoSAR airborne observatory. Research interests include radar remote sensing of snow, physical modelling of snowpack and machine learning applications in remote sensing inversion problems.
Research Interests: Ku-band airborne SAR remote sensing of snow from the CryoSAR.
Photo
Jeffrey Welch is conducting his MSc in remote sensing. He has a background in geomatics from undergrad and experience with weather observation networks from his experience working with Environment and Climate Change Canada. His current research is focused on bulk snow density retrievals from passive microwave remote sensing and automatic weather stations. General research interests include algorithm development and weather/climate monitoring.
Research Interests: Spaceborne passive microwave retrievals of snow density.
Lina Zschenderlein
Lina Zschenderlein is currently pursuing a PhD in collaboration with the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), where she works in the Satellite Services and Research group of the Arctic Space Centre. Her research focuses on spaceborne passive microwave remote sensing of snow, including the development, validation, and implementation of snow mapping approaches with a particular focus on ESA’s upcoming Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) mission.
Research Interests: Passive microwave remote sensing snow cover detection from ESA's CIMR mission.
 

Recent Members

  • Xuejun Liu (MES) - MRP: Analysis of Variability, Trend and Correlation of Snow and Tree Cover in Quebec, Canada, 2000 to 2020.
    Current position: financial services.
  • Tejasvi Hora (Ph.D.) (co-supervised with N. Basu CEE) - Addressing groundwater over-extraction in India: assessments, monitoring methods and interventions.
    Current position: data scientist
  • Wei Wang (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Snow Depth Retrieval from Wide Band Radar in Trail Valley Creek.
    Current position: Ph.D. Student
  • John Maclean (MES) Major Research Paper: Time Series Analysis of Synthetic Aperture Radar Backscatter Responses for Sea Ice.
    Current Position: GIS Technician, The Weather Network.
  • Aaron Thompson (Ph.D. & PDF/Research Associate) - Thesis topic: Developing Parameter Constraints for Radar-based SWE Retrievals.
    Current position: NRCan
  • Mieszko Fydrych (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Evaluating Multi-Temporal DInSAR Measurements of Ground Surface Deformation Around the Rhenish Coalfields in Germany Using Sentinel-1 SAR Imagery.
    Current position: InSAR specialist, MDA.
  • Julia Predusca (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Satellite remote sensing observations of snow cover extent during the melt-out season in the Thompson-Okanagan Region, British Columbia from 2003-2019.
    Current position: Environmental Consultant.
  • Qinghuan Li (Post Doctoral Fellow.) - Passive microwave remote sensing of snow using AMSR2 observations.
    PDRA Chinese Academies of Science, Beijing.
  • Margot Flemming (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Downscaling Coarse Resolution Satellite Passive Microwave SWE Estimates.
  • Jason Goetz (at University of Jena, Germany, supervisor: A. Brenning) (Ph.D.) - Thesis topic: UAV observations of snow in European alpine areas.
  • Michael Allchin (at UNBC, supervisor: S. Dery) (Ph.D.) - Thesis title: A Spatio-temporal analysis of trends in Northern Hemisphere Seasonal Snow-cover, 1971-2017.
  • Paul Donchenko (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Evaluating Aerial Ku-Band Radar Altimetry over Landfast First-Year Sea Ice.
    Current Position: Systems Developer.
  • Qinghuan Li (Ph.D.) - Thesis title: The influence of winter time boreal forest tree transmissivity on tree emission and passive microwave snow observations.
  • Nastaran Saberi (Ph.D.) - Thesis title: Snow Properties Retrieval Using Passive Microwave Observations.
    Current Position: PDRA, GWF Project and Company CEO. 
  • Vicky Vanthof (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Monitoring Rainwater Harvesting Systems in India Using Satellite Remote Sensing Observations. Current position: PhD student.
  • Hongjing Chen (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Wet Snow Mapping in Southern Ontario with Sentinel-1A Observations. Current position: consultant.
    Current Position: Financial Services.
  • Jeff Chan (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Monitoring ice-dammed glacier lake outburst floods in the Karakoram using visible-infrared satellite remote sensing observations.
    Current position: Consultant
  • Aaron Thompson (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Observations of moderate to deep seasonal snow in agricultural fields with a radar scatterometer at Ku- and X-band frequencies.
    Current position: PhD student, University of Waterloo
  • Jessie Tan (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Monitoring soil moisture and freeze/thaw state using C-band imaging radar.
    Current Position: GIS Specialist.
  • Qinghuan Li (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Exploring the use of MODIS forest transmissivity for correcting passive microwave observation of snow-covered terrain/landscape.
  • Mike Brady (co-supervised with C. Derksen, Environment Canada) (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Changes in sea ice motion and exchange in the Beaufort Sea: 1997-2012.
    Current position: Research assistant, Environment Canada
  • Andrew Kasurak (Ph.D.) - Thesis topic: Active & passive microwave remote sensing of seasonal terrestrial snow.
  • John Coughlin (M.Sc.) - Thesis topic: Radar remote sensing of snow in forest canopies.
  • Xiao Xu (co-supervised with P. Parker) (Ph.D.) - Thesis title: Exploring the use of remote sensing CO2 data to measure the CO2 concentration enhancements caused by coal-fired power plants.
    Current position: Consultant
  • Josh King (Ph.D.) - Thesis title: Remote sensing of tundra snow with Ku- and X-band radar.
  • Niina Luus (Ph.D.) - Thesis title: Improving estimates of net ecosystem CO2 exchange between the Arctic land surface and the atmosphere.
    Current position: Postdoctoral fellow, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Germany
  • Ryan Ahola (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Parameterization and implementation of a soil radar backscatter model with applicability to radar observations of a sub-Arctic environment.
    Current position: Radar specialist, DFO, Canada.
  • Antony Mascioli (M.E.S.) - Thesis topic: Geomatics.
    Current position: Consultant, Blue Heron Environmental
  • Michael Neilly (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Multiscale modelling of snow depth over an agricultural field in a small catchment in southern Ontario, Canada.
    Current position: Barrister and Solicitor, Neilly Family Law.
  • Jason Oldham (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Mapping snow pack depth in the town of Uxbridge, Ontario, using and airborne laser scanner.
    Current position: Manager: Nunavut Brewing Company.
  • Alec Casey (M.Sc.) - Thesis title: Dual-polarization (HH/HV) RADARSAT-2 ScanSAR observations of new, young and first-year sea ice.
    Current position:
  • Zhenhao Bao (Postdoctoral Fellow) - Thesis topic: Snow cover extent and snow mass climatologies in Canada.
    Current position: Research associate, University of Regina
  • Niina Luus (M.E.S.) - Thesis topic: Modelling NPP in arctic terrain using remote sensing data.
  • Andrew Kasurak (M.E.S.) - Thesis topic: Geostatistical modelling of snow in the Yukon.
  • Kanya Taruvinga (M.E.S. 2009) - Thesis title: Remote sensing of gulley erosion in the Blood River catchment, South Africa.
  • Holly Waite (M.E.S. 2009) - Thesis title: Remote sensing of land cover change in the Niagara Escarpment.
    Current position: Source water protection planner, County of Oxford