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Principal Investigator: Paul Kushner

Hello and welcome to my group's web space!

I study many aspects of atmospheric dynamics, atmospheric circulation, and climate change. From 2013-2019 I led the Canadian Sea Ice and Snow Evolution Network (CanSISE.ca), which studied sea ice and snow processes and their connection to climate. I recently served as Vice-President, President, and Past-President of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS.ca).

Recently I’ve been exploring engineering applications of climate science with some good colleagues at the University of Toronto Centre for Climate Science and Engineering.

Here's more information about my group's work. 

Contact me to learn more about research opportunities in my group.

Students

  • Lilian Chan (UG researcher): the University of Toronto climate downscaling workflow (UTCDW) and snow water equivalent analysis.

  • Cassie Chanen (M.Env. researcher): the University of Toronto climate downscaling workflow (UTCDW) and heat impacts on energy infrastructure.

  • Gina Chou (Ph.D.): analyzing winds from ESA Aeolus’s spaceborne wind lidar.

  • Aleksandra Elias Chereque (former UG researcher, now Ph.D.): drivers of snowfall extremes in reanalysis products.

  • Luke Fraser-Leach (Ph.D.): assessing sea ice loss protocols in energy balance models

  • Haruki Hirasawa (Ph.D.): how the atmospheric general circulation, particularly Sahel precipitation, responds to aerosol forcing.

  • Michael Morris (former UG researcher, now Ph.D.): regional impacts of climate change on winds and temperature, for engineering applications

  • Erin Sauvé (UG researcher): snow on sea ice characteristics on multi-year and first-year ice using NESOSIM

  • Jack Wong (Ph.D.): computational fluid dynamics for wind engineering and assessing wind-load effects of climate change. (I am Jack’s cosupervisor, his main supervisor is Prof. Oya Mercan in the Dept. of Civil and Mineral Engineering at U of T.)

Postdoctoral fellows:

  • Alex Cabaj (former Ph.D. student): characterizing variability of snow falling on sea ice.

Current collaborators and our projects

  • Gudrun Magnusdottir (professor at University of California, Irvine): causes and consequences of polar amplification (PAMIP)

  • Oya Mercan (professor at the University of Toronto): impact of climate change on wind loads on the built environment

  • I. Daniel Posen (professor at the University of Toronto): how climate change mitigation strategies are influenced by projected climate change

Kushner group alumni

  • Alexandre Audette (former Ph.D., now postdoc at UC Santa Cruz): mechanisms of poleward heat transport and Arctic amplification

  • Adeline Bichet (former postdoc, now payroll accounts management at AGORI)

  • Russell Blackport (former Ph.D. student, postdoc at U. Exeter, UK, now research scientist at ECCC): how the atmosphere responds to sea ice loss in the coupled climate system.

  • Ben Cash (former co-supervised PDF at NOAA/GFDL, now Research Scientist at COLA)

  • Etienne Dunn-Sigouin (former co-supervised PDF at the University of Bergen, now a researcher at NORCE in Bergen, Norway)

  • Robert Fajber (former Ph.D. student, then NOAA CGC Fellow (postdoctoral fellow) at U Washington, now Prof. at McGill University)

  • Chris Fletcher (former PDF at U. Toronto, now Prof. at U. Waterloo)

  • Holly Han (former undergraduate research student, now Ph.D. student at McGill University)

  • Steven Hardiman (former PDF at U. Toronto, now Research Scientist at the UKMO)

  • Stephanie Hay (former Ph.D. and PDF at U. Toronto, now at the University of Exeter)

  • Kyuho Lee (former undergraduate research student, now graduate student in Department of Physics at Stanford University)

  • Chengyun Li (former undergraduate research student, now graduate student at the University of Toronto, Mississauga)

  • Maria Fernanda Lozano (former UG, now PhD. student at UofT)

  • Holly Maness (former PDF at U. Toronto, now PDF at UC Berkeley)

  • Dia Martinez Gracey (former undergraduate research student, completing B.Sc. in Physics at McMaster U.)

  • Jeremy McGibbon (former undergraduate research student, then Ph.D. student at U. Washington, now Machine Learning Scientist at Vulcan, Inc.)

  • Yara Mohajerani (former undergraduate research student, now Ph.D. student at UC Irvine).

  • Thomas Reichler (former PDF at NOAA/GFDL, now Prof. at U. Utah)

  • Michael Sigmond (former PDF at U. Toronto, now Research Scientist at Environment Canada)

  • Karen Smith (former Ph.D. student, now Assistant Prof., teaching stream, at University of Toronto Scarborough)

  • Neil Tandon (former postdoc, now Assistant Prof. at York University)

  • Dmitry Vyushin (former Ph.D. student, now Director in RBC Capital Markets)

  • Lei Wang (former Ph.D. student, now Prof. at Fudan University, Shanghai)

  • Oliver Watt-Meyer (former Ph.D. student, now Machine Learning Scientist, Climate Modeling, Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence): how planetary waves interact with the polar vortex and what it means for weather systems.

  • Xuesong Zhang (former M.Sc. student, then Ph.D. student in Prof. Dylan Jones group here in U of T Physics, postdoc with Prof. Posen, now working in financial sector)