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11.02.11 Y-File: Philanthropist Pierre Lassonde donates $25 million to York to expand the School of Engineering  11.02.11

08.22.11 Y-File: Storm chaser has filmed America's deadliest  hurricanes  08.18.11

07.25.11 York atmospheric scientist in the news!  07.19.11

07.22.11 Y-File: It's been a blast!  York University and the space shuttle program

07.15.11 New Geomatics engineering scholarships! Please click here for fruther information.

06.28.11 Y-File: Ontario commits $50 million for new engineering building at York

06.13.11 Congratulations to Ravi Persaud and Connie Ko!
Two graduate students in Geomatics program recently received the best student presentation awards. Mr. Ravi Persad, 2nd year Master student (Supervisors, Costas Armenakis & Gunho Sohn) received the best student presentation award from the GEOIDE Annual Scientific Conference held in Toronto , May 16-17. Ravi 's research work was selected as oral presentation out of about 80 submissions and won the best presentation award with $500 cash prize. Ravi gave his oral presentation under the title of "Integration of Surveillance Video and 3D GIS for Object Tracking". Another successful achievement was made by Ms. Connie Ko, who is 3rd year PhD student (Supervisors, Gunho Sohn & Tarmo Remmel). Connie won the best student presentation award out of 49 student presentation ($100 cash prize) from the CAG (Canadian Association of Geographers)'s Annual Meeting in Calgary , May 31-June 4. The title of Connie's presentation was "Extracting Geometric Features from Airborne Lidar for Tree Species Classification". Congratulations to Ravi and Connie!

06.07.11 YFile Headline News: York rover team finishes second in Mars challenge

04.10.11 NEW AWARDS
AOLS is now sponsoring SEVEN $1000 awards for Geomatics Engineering Students.

02.09.11 Congratulations and best  wishes to Giselle Dookhie!
Giselle Dookhie, a recent graduate of our undergraduate Atmospheric  Science program, won the CBC Weather Scholarship this year.  Giselle is currently enrolled in the  MSc program at McGill.

01.21.01 Congratulations Professor  Reginal Lee & Professor Sunil  Bisnath!
Professors Lee and Bisnath's  abstract/paper has been chosen  to be among the best 10 finalists  of the "Japanese Nano-satellite Constellation Mission Idea Contest"

01.21.01 Congratulations Professor  George  Zhu!
Professor Zhu's abstract/paper has been chosen to be among the best 10 finalists of the "Japanese Nano-satellite Constellation Mission  Idea Contest"

06.10.10 YFile: York team places second in 2010 rover challenge

06.01.10 EATS student top finalist in WxChallenge tournament

Jordan Nicholls, a senior EATS undergraduate student in atmospheric science placed among the top four forecasters in the year-end three-week marathon forecasting tournament in the WxChallenge competition, forecasting for Amarillo, Texas. The tournament is reserved for the top 64 forecasters of the year from among over 1,500 forecasters at 65 universities across Canada and the U.S. He will receive a trophy in recognition of this achievement, which also caps off his third consecutive year earning the top score from among forecasters at York University.

Designed to test weather forecasting ability in a variety of situations, WxChallenge forecasters compete against one another by submitting individual forecasts of high and low temperature, precipitation and maximum wind speed each day for two weeks at one city, rotating across 10 different cities over the course of the competition. All students, researchers, faculty and alumni of York University are eligible to join the York team, which will begin again in September, regardless of major or department affiliation. The 2009-10 team was the largest yet with 33 forecasters. For further details, consult the WxChallenge website: http://wxchallenge.com.

03.30.10 Rising Stars of Research  2010 National Undergraduate  Research Poster Competition
Go to Vancouver this summer and  present your research! MORE

03.30.10 ESSE Professors and York featured on Daily Planet  in a story about the Northern Lights mission to Mars
MORE starts ~8:00min

03.16.10 2010 Annual General Meeting of the Association of Ontario Land Surveyors (AOLS)
During the recent 2010 (AOLS) Geomatics Engineering graduate student Yoonseok Jwa received the 3rd place award in the graduate poster paper competition for his poster entitled “Automatic 3D powerline reconstruction using piecewise propagation of catenary curve model from airborne lidar data: Post-processing”, co-authored with Gunho Sohn.

03.16.10 2007-2008 Awards of the Canadian Institute of Geomatics
CIG published in the recent issue of GEOMATICA (63(4):459, 2009), Costas Armenakis (Geomatics Engineering, York University) and Alexandre Beaulieu received the Intermap Award for their paper “Potential of Cartosat-1 images for topographic mapping”, published in GEOMATICA (62(1):23-32, 2008).


01.18.10 York's WxChallenge Winner: Andrew Danko
<Full Story>

12.06.09 Professor Mike Daly joins the Department

11.12.09 York Engineering Students Patent Innovative  Design Concept
<Full Story>

10.07.09 Yfile Headline: York team wins the Mars Rover Challenge
Y-File News: October 07, 2009 <Full Story>

06.02.09 Yfile Headline News: York team wins the Mars Rover Challenge
Y-File Headline News: June 02, 2009 <Full Story>

06.02.09 Discovery Channel Daily Planet: York University Rover Team
Daily Planet : May 21, 2009 - Clip 2 <Full Story>

10.02.08 YFile: Climate change research underway at York
Y-File More News: October 06, 2008 <Full Story>

10.02.08 YFile: York-led scientists discover snow falling from Martian clouds
Y-File Headline News: October 01, 2008 <Full Story>

07.19.08 Dr. Gunho Sohn joins the Department as an Assistant Professor

06.09.08 York team places 3rd in Mars Society's Mars rover competition

06.01.08 YFile: Phoenix landing on Mars a success
Y-File Headline News: May 26, 2008 <Full Story>

05.23.08 Students of weather win forecasting trophies
Y-File More News: May 22, 2008 <Full Story>

05.23.08 Rifaat Abdalla declared second place recipient of ESRI Award for Best Scientific Paper in GIS
JIIRP paper "A network-centric modeling approach for infrastructure interdependency", PE&RS, 73(6), 681-690. Authored by Rifaat Abdalla and co-authored with Prof. Tao, Prof Li and Prof. Cheng has been declared the 2nd place recipient of 2008 ESRI Award for Best Scientific Paper in GIS. Awarded by the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). The award ceremony is part of ASPRS 2008 conference in Portland, Oregon, April 30-May, 2, 2008.

04.14.08 EcoSchools receives funding from Government of Ontario
Y-File Headline News: April 14, 2008 <Full Story>

04.06.08 Ima Ituen wins OCE Professional Outreach Award
We are very please top annouce that Ms. Ima Ituen at GeoICT lab (supervised by Dr. Gunho Sohn), has been awarded the OCE Professional Outreach Awards, which fully supports Ima's activitives during the GEOIDE Summer School 2008 in June 1st - 6th at Niagara, ON.

03.28.08 Dr. Qiuming Cheng wins the William Christian Krumbein Medal   
We are very pleased to announce that our colleague, Qiuming Cheng, has been awarded the International Association of Mathematical Geology's highest honour, the William Christian Krumbein Medal, for 2008. It is awarded every two years in recognition of distinguished research, service to the IAMG and service to
the profession. As its recipient, Qiuming has been invited to deliver a keynote address at the International Geological Conference in Oslo in August.

03.07.08 York study of blowing snow to improve winter weather forecasting
Y-File Headline News: March 04, 2008 <Full Story>

03.07.08 York U study of blowing snow to improve winter weather forecasting
Yorku Media Release: March 03, 2008 <Full Story>

02.28.08 AOLS Annual Meeting Poster Session Competition Reward Recipients:

1rst Place ($1000 Prize) :
Yoonseok Jwa

3rd Place ($500 Prize):
Wenlei Wang

01.29.08 How to cool lakes while the world warm
Y-File Headline News: January 23, 2008 <Full Story>

12.10.07 PhD Graduate Research Position available in Geomatics

12.10.07 Department  graduate earns share of Nobel  Peace Prize
Y-File Headline News: November 07, 2007 <Full Story>

11.08.07 Job Posting:
Geophysicist - Sanders Geophysics

11.08.07 Recipients of the Earth and Space Science and Engineering Awards

Highest Achiever in the First Year EATS Course ($50 Bookstore Gift Certificate) :
DEREK GAGNON

Highest Achiever in the Second Year EATS Courses ($50 Bookstore Gift Certificate):
JORDAN NICHOLLS

Highest Aggregate in the Earth Sciences Stream ($100 Bookstore Gift Certificate):
XIAOSHENG WENG

Highest Aggregate in the Atmospheric Science Stream ($100 Bookstore Gift Certificate):
DAVID BERNSTEIN

Highest Aggregate in the Space Science Stream ($100 Bookstore Gift Certificate):
DI WU

09.05.07 York opens a new facility for air quality research
Y-File Headline News: August 29, 2007 <Full Story>

08.10.07 YorkU research headed to Mars aboard NASA Phoenix Mission
YorkU Media Release: August 01, 2007 <Full Story>
PI: Peter Smith - U of Arizona

07.27.07 Corporations see bright side of global warming:
Edmonton Journal :  July 23rd, 2007  <Full Story>

07.27.07 Job Posting:
On-Call Meteorologist - The Weather Network

05.16.07 WxChallenge winner:
Rob Davis from York University

05.16.07 Job Posting:  
Inversionist and Field Assistant at JVX Ltd.

04.25.07 It IS Rocket Science
York U magazine:  April 2007  <Full Story>

02.05.07 Petrie expansion adds valuable research space
Headline News:  January 01, 2007  <Full Story>

11.15.06 Shake, rattle and broil
Headline News:  October 13, 2006  <Full Story>

10.05.06 York's Space Experts CelebrateTwo Special Anniversaries
Headline News:  May 9, 2006  <Full Story>

27.03.06 Walsingham VHF WindTracker Display
Powerpoint presentation about the instrument can be downloaded here.

27.01.06 International Year of the Planet Earth (IYPE)
The International Year of the Planet Earth (IYPE) is scheduled for 2008, with ramp up and down years of 2007 and 2009, respectively. As a large component of IYPE is outreach to demonstrate the importance of Earth Sciences to humanity and people reach our organization via a variety of website portals.

11.18.05 Phoenix Mission:

Follow the Water - Radio Canada International
The interplanetary search for water- Y-file
Canadian weather station to look for signs of life on Mars - CBC News
Canadian weather machine heading for Red Planet - CTV News
Canada – and York – are leading the way to Mars - Y-file

09.27.05 Hurricanes and Global Warming

York ESSE alum , Nick Czerknovich, reports Air France crash on his first day as a Meteorologist/Weather Presenter at CBC Headline News:  August 8, 2005   <Full Story>

York’s weather station gets an upgrade. The Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering (ESSE) has upgraded its EMOS weather station, which is now back online gathering real time data for the department’s weather Web site. <Full Story>

The Phoenix Mars project wins $13.5 million of new funding from the Canadian Space Agency.
Headline News:  July 28, 2005 < Full Story>

Phoenix mission clears two important hurdles for 2007 launch
Headline News:  June 14, 2005   <Full Story>

Dr. Vincent Tao (York), Dr. Yun Zhang (UNB), and Dr. Bryan Mercer (Intermap Technologies Corp.) received the prestigious Talbert Abrams Grand Award 2005 for their journal paper, entitled "An Initial Study on Automatic Reconstruction of Ground Digital Elevation Models from Airborne IfSAR Digital Surface Models" which appeared in the April, 2004, edition of the journal PE&RS.  Named after one of North America's pioneers in early aerial photography and mapping technology, the Talbert Abrams Award is one of the most prestigious and recognized prizes given to researchers in the mapping and remote sensing community today. The award presentation took place at the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) 2005 Annual Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, March 9^th, 2005. ASPRS is the largest scientific association in the area of remote sensing and photogrammetry with over 7,000 members around the world.  Pictures of Ceremony.

Dr. Vincent Tao has developed innovative satellite mapping technology 'SAME'... 
Headline News:  November 22, 2004  < Full Story>

Dr. Vincent Tao is appointed as Chair of ASPRS Softcopy Photogrammetry Committee (June  04):
Founded in 1934, ASPRS - The Imaging and Geospatial Information Society is a scientific association serving over 7,000 professional members around the world. Its mission is to advance knowledge and improve understanding of mapping sciences and to promote the responsible applications of photogrammetry, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and supporting technologies. As a chair, Dr Tao will be working with members to develop standards and directions to softcopy (digital) photogrammetry.

Student Successes :
Two of our Atmospheric Science undergraduate students have recently received good news of applications that they have made.  Pam Fairbridge has been granted a place on the NCAR Undergraduate Leadership Workshop to be held in Boulder this summer June 21-25, 2004;  and  Angela Colebrook is a recipient of a CMOS Scholarship (a national competition).

Dr. Vincent Tao is honored as Guest Professor by both Wuhan University and SouthEast University in Chinain his recent visit to China, May 2004. Wuhan University  is a key university directly under the administration of the Education Ministry of the People's Republic of China. It is located in Hubei Province's capital Wuhan known as "The thoroughfare leading to nine provinces". The university was founded in 1893 and has enjoyed a long history. The Geomatics Engineering program of Wuhan University is well-know internationally for its high quality teaching and research. Dr. Tao has established long standing research collaboration with this institution.
Southeast University (SEU) is a century-old prestigious institution of higher education. It is one of the national key university located near the city centre of Nanjing. Southeast University is one of the top 10 universities in scientific research and development in China. It has over 20 national or provincial research institutes, with a number of key research bases.  The appointment of Dr Tao as Guest Professor will strengthen the academic collaboration between the institutions and facilitate the internationalization of York's research in the field of geomatics.
Picture of Ceremony with Prof. Tao as Guest Professor at Southeast University, China

Dr. Vincent Tao has been appointed to the Board of Directors of URISA (May 2004), responsible for member education. The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) was founded in the United States in 1963 as a non-profit organization focusing on information technology education and issues. Today there are over 7,000 members internationally, including 26 regional chapters throughout the U.S. and Canada and sister organizations in Asia, Australia, and Europe.  URISA - Ontario was established in 1987 with less than 50 members and incorporated in Ontario on March 31, 1992.  In the beginning, the Chapter focused on education, which is now being complemented by new initiatives. Today, there are more than 500 members from diverse backgrounds in both the public and private sectors and is recognized by other organizations as Ontario's GIS organization.

Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) Award received by John (Jack) McConnell
Headline News:  March 15, 2004 <Full Story>
Professor John (Jack) McConnell of the Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering in the Faculty of Pure & Applied Science, who is the principal investigator, received $2,310,565 from CFI for the project "A Community Approach to Multiscale Air Quality Modelling and Forecasting".

Chapman Medal won by Gordon Shepherd October 31, 2003 <Full Story>
Congratulations to Gordon Shepherd for winning the John H. Chapman Medal.  This is the third time the medal has been awarded.  The award recognizes a person for their contributions to Canadian Space Science - to scientists who have through their research efforts have greatly enhanced and extended the Canadian Space Program.  We should all be very proud of Gordon's accomplishments.

The Canadian Wind Energy Association R.J. Templin Award for 2003 awarded to Peter Taylor (York University)  and John Walmsley (MSC, retired) for outstanding contributions to the development of "Canadian Wind Energy Technology".  It relates mostly to work that was done in the 1980's at AES/MSC, and followed up at York over the last few years with Wensong Weng and Sergiy Savelyev.

The Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) Doctoral Scholarship, has been awarded to Rifaat Abdalla (September 05, 2003).  The NSERC Doctoral Scholarship is a highly competitive prestigious national award.  The award value is $38, 200 over two years.  Rifaat's PhD research is on the use of Web GIS for Disaster Management under the supervision of Prof. Vincent Tao.  Congratulations Rifaat!

Mars mission a giant leap for York’s space scientists
Headline News:  August 06, 2003  < Full Story>
York University’s space scientists are so euphoric right now that their spirits might well be halfway to Mars. Over the long weekend, the announcement came that their Phoenix team has been selected for the US$325-million 2007 Mars Scout Mission by the US National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA)...

Donation of mineral collection to ESSE
from Sophie Katz was arranged through Joel Porter of the York Foundation.   Received by Prof. Qiuming and Prof. Keith.

V. Tao and B. Hu to receive ASPRS Talbert Abrams Award  
Headline News:  March 20, 2003 <Full Story>
Prof. Vincent Tao, CRC in Geomatics and Yong Hu, York PhD candidate received the Talbert Abrams Award by the American Imaging and Geospatial Information Society (ASPRS) for their paper on "A Comprehensive Study of the Rational Function Model for Photogrammetric Processing" (Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing: Vol 67 no. 12 pp 1347-1357).  They are the grand prize winner of this award consisting of a plaque and $5000USD.  Tao and Hu are considered the pioneers who have researched and developed a unique rational sensor model for exploring the high resolution satellite images.  Their work has been recognized internationally and is widely cited by their peers.  Talbert Adams Award is the highest paper award offered by the ASPRS.  This is the second time for Prof Tao to receive this honour.  Prof.  Tao is the only Canadian who has received this award so far.

Premier Research Excellence Award Headline News:  April 25, 2003   <Full Story>
Dr. Vincent Tao received the Premier's Research Excellence Award (PREA).  The award carries $100,000 from the Ontario government and $50,000 from the university to further his research.  The awards were created in 1998 to help Ontario's world-class researchers attract talented people to their research teams and to encourage innovation among the province's brightest young researchers at universities, colleges, hospitals and research institutes.      

Award-winner Prof. Doug Smylie Headline News:   March 07, 2003  <Full Story>
Doug Smylie, a retired York professor in Earth and Atmospheric Science, has been awarded the 2002 J. Tuzo Wilson Medal by the Canadian Geophysical Union. In the citation it says: "...

York lifts off in Mars coverage June 12, 2003 York University space scientists, members of teams that are finalists in the competition for a US NASA-led scout mission to Mars in 2007, enjoyed media attention this week as four spacecraft currently nose their way to the Red Planet. Ontario newspapers from the London Free Press to the Fort Frances Times carried a Canadian Press story sparked by a June 6 York media release, "York U. scientists explain why everybody is heading to Mars this month." The reports quoted Diane Michelangeli, an atmospheric science professor with York’s Faculty of Pure & Applied Science who is one of three York researchers on the Phoenix team, a finalist for the scout mission. The Toronto Star pointed out that Japan’s first Mars probe, Nozomi, is getting navigational support from York University’s Centre for Research in Earth and Space. CBC’s Quirks and Quarks has also scheduled a Mars-probe show featuring York scientists.

Careers in Meteorology at MSC/Enviroment Canada (March 2003): Check the Link

CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Spiros Pagiatakis for his success in the latest CFI competition in Geomatics Engineering.

CONGRATULATIONS to  Dr. Vincent Tao, one of two York recipients receiving the 2002 Synergy Award for Innovation.  VP Research & Innovation Stan Shapson had the pleasure of presenting Vincent Tao, Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Geomatics Engineering, with a framed letter of congratulations for his achievements from Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

CONGRATULATIONS! Dr. Vincent Tao, received two large research grants from the Geoide NCE Grant Competition.  Dr. Tao led a team of researchers and won a $534,000 research grant from the Geoide National Centers of Excellence (NCE) program.  Dr. Tao has also participated in another Geoide NCE grant competition as co-Investigator where $450,000 funding is awarded.  These two research grants will allow Dr. Tao and his team to explore a new avenue towards fast and cost-effective 3D feature extraction and change detection from multi-platform imaging sources including high-resolution satellite imagery and airborne Lidar and In SAR mapping data.  This research will develop new approaches and systems for fast 3D urban mapping, transportation applications, emergency responses and disaster management.

CONGRATULATIONS! Mr. Yong Hu received the 2002 Altenhofen Memorial Scholarship Award by the Imaging and Geospatial Information Society (ASPRS).  Mr. Hu was selected as the recipient of the 2002 Altenhofen Memorial Scholarship Award by the Imaging and Geospatial Information Society (ASPRS).  This is a competitive scholarship award that is given annually to one outstanding graduate student in the area of photogrammetry.  The award carries $2,000 cash reward and a certificate.  Mr. Yong Hu is a PhD  candidate under the supervision of Dr. Vincent Tao, Canada Research Chair in Geomatics.

Ozone Project for York

York faculty receive research funding from CFCAS