Faculty
Dr. Y. Jade Morton
Dr. Jade Morton is a Helen and Hubert Croft Professor, Director for Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research (CCAR), and head of the Satellite Navigation and Sensing (SeNSe) Laboratory in the Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder. Prior to joining CU in 2017, she was an electrical engineering professor at Colorado State University and at Miami University where she led the creation of its Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Dr. Morton’s research interests lie at the intersection of satellite navigation technologies and remote sensing of the Earth’s space environment, atmosphere, and surface. She is an author/co-author of over 300 technical publications and the lead editor of a two-volume set of books titled Position, Navigation, and Timing Technologies in the 21st Century published by Wiley-IEEE Press. She has led numerous projects sponsored by AFOSR, AFRL, ARMY, DARPA, DHS, NASA, NOAA, NSF, ONR, Lockheed Martin, Septentrio, etc... During her academic career, she has advised and mentored more than 40 graduate students and post-docs, given more than 100 invited/keynote/plenary presentations, and delivered over 50 short courses and tutorials for government labs, industry partners, and at professional conferences and workshops. She served as the Technical Editor of Navigation Systems for IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronics Systems, an editor for Beidou Special Issue for Navigation, Journal of Institute of Navigation (ION), a member of editorial board for the Springer journal GPS Solutions, President of the ION, and a program chair, general chair, and session chair of numerous international conferences. Dr. Morton is a member of the US Space-based PNT Advisory Board, the Jicamarca Radio Observatory Advisory Board, and the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) Advisory Board. She is a distinguished lecturer of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society, and a recipient of the ION Burka, Thurlow, Kepler, and Distinguished Service award, and the IEEE PLANS Richard Kershner award. Dr. Morton is a fellow of IEEE, ION, and the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN). more...
Staff and Affiliates
Harrison Bourne
Harrison Bourne is a Research Engineer for the Satellite Navigation and Sensing Laboratory at University of Colorado Boulder. He earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from Miami University in 2013 and an M.S. in electrical engineering from Colorado State University in 2016. His work is focused on high accuracy estimation of ionosphere total electron content (TEC) using global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals and on develop robust GNSS signal recording systems for deployment around the world.
Dr. Brian Breitsch
Dr. Brian Breitsch is a Research Associate for the Satellite Navigation and Sensing Laboratory at University of Colorado Boulder. He earned a B.S. in electrical engineering and a B.A. in mathematics from Miami University in 2014, an M.S. in electrical engineering from Colorado State University in 2017 and a PhD in aerospace engineering from University of Colorado Boulder in 2021. His research pursuits lie in tracking GNSS signals under low-signal-power radio occultation contexts. His current academic interests include radio occultation inversion techniques, tomography, machine learning, pure and applied mathematics.
Dr. Hyeyeon (Ann) Chang
Dr. Hyeyeon (Ann) Chang is a Postdoctoral Researcher for the Satellite Navigation and Sensing Laboratory at University of Colorado, Boulder. She received her PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 2023. Her PhD work was focused on GNSS radio occultation (RO) ionospheric electron density retrieval. Her research interests include GNSS RO techniques and ionospheric dynamics.
Dr. Stephen (Tim) Dittmann
Stephen (Tim) Dittmann is a Research Affiliate for the Satellite Navigation and Sensing Laboratory at University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his B.S. in geosciences and civil engineering from Princeton University and M.S./PhD in aerospace engineering from CU Boulder. He works at EarthScope, a non-profit supporting geoscience research and education using geodesy and seismology. His research interests include coupling geophysical and remote sensing applications of GNSS with applied data science.
Dr. Carolyn Roesler
Dr. Carolyn Roesler is an Research Associate for the Satellite Navigation and Sensing Laboratory at University of Colorado, Boulder. She earned her doctorate in aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2014 . The focus of her PhD was in coastal altimetry. Her current interests are in GNSS reflectometry applications for land and ocean remote sensing.
Steve Taylor
Steve Taylor is a Research Engineer for the Satellite Navigation and Sensing Laboratory at University of Colorado Boulder. He earned a bachelors degree in computer science from Miami University in 2012. His work focuses on building and deploying global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data collection systems and developing real-time GNSS monitoring applications.
Dr. Jiahua Zhang
Dr. Jiahua Zhang is a Postdoctoral Researcher for the Satellite Navigation and Sensing Laboratory at University of Colorado Boulder. He earned his bachelor and master degrees in Geodesy and Geomatics from Wuhan University, China, in 2014 and 2017, respectively, and earned his doctoral degree in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, in 2021. He focuses on using ground-based and space-borne GNSS reflectometry to monitor the changes in permafrost, sea ice, and other cryospheric components. More information can be found on his website.
Doctoral Students
Sophie Anderson
Sophie Anderson is a doctoral student in the department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. She graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2021 with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and a minor in Physics. During her undergraduate years, she worked as a research assistant and authored a paper on extrasolar planets, and spent two summers as an intern at Northrop Grumman working on military simulations. Her current research interests include the application of GNSS reflectometry and other remote sensing techniques to the study of the cryosphere.
Pin-Hsuan Cheng
Pin-Hsuan Cheng is a doctoral student in Aerospace Engineering Sciences at University of Colorado Boulder. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Earth Sciences at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan in 2019 and 2020, respectively. During his years in NCKU, he worked as a research assistant and authored his master’s Thesis together with a paper on ionospheric instabilities. He also worked as a research assistant at National Central University (NCU), Taiwan in 2021, mainly on GNSS-Reflectometry applications using machine learning. His current works focus is on ionospheric and GNSS-Reflectometry properties of weather extremes.
Madeline (Maddy) Evans
Madeline (Maddy) Evans is a doctoral student in Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She received a B.S. in German and a B.S.E in Electrical Engineering (cum laude) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2020. During her time at the University of Michigan, she worked as a student researcher in the Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering Department, working on GNSS-R remote sensing of ocean pollutants. Her current research interests are GNSS and GNSS-R signal processing for remote sensing of the ionosphere.
Brenna Royersmith
Brenna Royersmith is an aerospace engineering science doctoral student at University of Colorado Boulder. She graduated from University of Colorado Boulder with a B.A. degree from Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences and Mathematics in Spring 2021, earning the title summa cum laude in Astronomy for her senior honor's thesis. Her current work with the SeNSe Lab focuses on GNSS signal processing for high-latitude remote sensing and correlation with total electron content.
Neeti Sonth
Neeti Sonth is a doctoral student in Aerospace Engineering Sciences at University of Colorado, Boulder. She received her M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Colorado, Boulder in 2018. Her master’s thesis was based on FDTD-based material dispersion modeling. After her M.S., she worked as a signal integrity engineer at Mentor Graphics and then worked as a Radio Frequency Engineer at Apple. During her years at Apple, she worked on the RF front-end of GNSS receivers for iPhones, watches, and iPads. Her current interests are GNSS remote sensing applications.
Margaret Scott
Margaret Scott is a doctoral student in Aerospace Engineering Sciences at University of Colorado, Boulder. She received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Mechatronics along with a separate honor's degree from Montana State University in December 2019. During her undergrad, she interned at British Petroleum as a power engineer (2018), and at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (now Missiles and Defense) in a radar receiver/exciter research lab (2019). Her current interests are GNSS remote sensing applications.
Rob Steenburgh
Rob Steenburgh is a doctoral student in Aerospace Engineering Sciences at University of Colorado Boulder. Before he was a doctoral student, Rob spent 23 years in the United States Air Force, serving as a meteorologist. While serving he earned his BSc in meteorology from North Carolina State University in 1998 and his MSc in applied physics from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 2007. In 2014 he became a space scientist and his duties now include verifying space weather forecasts, facilitating the transition of research to operations, and providing education and outreach. His research interests include characterizing ionospheric scintillation in equatorial and polar regions.
Jiawei Xu
Jiawei Xu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department, University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China in the fall of 2022. His research focuses on the ionospheric scintillation effect on LEO signals, multipath detection and mitigation, and multi-band collaborative tracking.
Alumni
Doctoral Students
Dr. Stephen (Tim) Dittmann, Data Scientist, III EarthScope Consortium, Bouler Colorado
Dr. Ian Collett, Research Scientist ASTRA LLC, Louisville Colorado
Dr. Brian Breitsch, Research Associate, Satellite Navigation and Sensing Laboratory, University of Colorado Boulder
Dr. Yang Wang, Visiting Facluty, Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
Dr. Yunxiang Liu, Research Scientist, Meta, Bellevue Washington
Dr. Dongyang Xu, Software Engineer, NovAtel Inc., Calgary Canada
Dr. Yu Jiao GNSS Engineer, Trimble Navigation, Broomfield Colorado
Dr. Jun Wang, CIRES, Boulder Colorado
Visiting Professors and Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Kirsten Strandjord, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Minnesota
Dr. Pai Wang, Associate Professor, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai China
Dr. Zhe Yang, Assistant Professor, Tongji University, Shanghai China
Dr. Charles Rino, Rino Consulting, California.
Dr. Byungwoon Park Associate Professor, College of Engineering, Sejong University, Republic of Korea
Dr. Jieqing Yu, Associate Professor, School of Environment Science and Spatial Informatics, China University of Mining and Technology, China
Dr. Hyeyeon Chang (2019-2020). PhD student, KAIST, South Korea.
Dr. Rong Yang, Assistant Professor, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai China
Dr. Xiaoli Liu, Associate Professor, School of Electrical Engineering, Wuhan University, China
Dr. Yanhong Kou, Associate Professor, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, China
Dr. Hong Wu, Professor, College of Information Technology and Science, Nankai University, China
Visiting Doctoral Students
Bo Han, Senior Research Engineer at Huawei, Shenzhen China
Chen Wang
Nazelie Kassabian, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Kyle Kauffman, Research Professor, Autonomy and Navigation Technology (ANT) Center, Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT)
Senling Peng, Senior Software Engineer, Samsung Semiconductor Inc.
Hu Wang, Researcher, Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping, China
Xin Chen, Assistant Researcher, Informative Technology and Electrical Engineering Research Institute, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China
Master's Students
Swastik Bhattacharya
Kahn-Bau Wu
Samantha Bilardi, Data Analyst, National Geodetic Survey
William Krier, Navigation Systems Engineer, The MITRE Corporation
Brian Breitsch, Postdoctoral Researcher, Satellite Navigation and Sensing Laboratory, University of Colorado Boulder
Greg Myer
Garret Bischof
Harrison Bourne, Research Enginneer, Satellite Navigation and Sensing Laboratory, University of Colorado Boulder
Mark Carroll, Research Assistant, Autonomy and Navigation Technology (ANT) Center, Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT)
Hang Yin, Technical Staff, Trimble Navigation
Dr. Dongyang Xu, Software Engineer, NovAtel Inc., Calgary Canada
Ruihui Di, GPS Software Engineer, Marvel Semiconductor Inc.
Brian Jameson, Systems Engineer, Kranze Technology Solutions, Inc.
Dr. Yu Jiao GNSS Engineer, Trimble Navigation, Broomfield Colorado
Dr. Jun Wang, CIRES, Boulder Colorado
Fei Niu, Software Developer, Yahoo
Xiaolei Mao, GNSS system and Software Engineer, Samsung Semiconductor Inc.
Praveen Vikram, University of Colorado
Jason Smith, Exceptional Innovation
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