Junzi Sun, Ph.D.

About Me

I am a tenured assistant professor at TU Delft, researching air transportation, data science, and sustainability at the Aerospace Engineering Faculty. My passion also lies in making air transport research open, reproducible, and reuseable. I’ve developed several popular open-source tools for aviation research, including pyModeS, OpenAP, and TOP. I am also the author of the book The 1090 Megahertz Riddle.

What’s up?

We are building and advocating the Journal of Open Aviation Science, a diamond open-access journal (free to publish and read), open peer review, with mandatory open data and open tools. It radically promotes open-source and reproducibility in aviation research.
Have you heard of tangram? It is an open framework that aggregates and processes ADS-B and Mode S surveillance data for real-time analysis. Come and join us on GitHub.

Research interests

Air traffic management
Aviation sustainability
Data science and AI
Emission modeling, assessment, and mitigation
Future air-ground transport operations

Research links

Teaching at university

AE4321 (2020-present): Air Traffic Management
IFEEMCS520100 (2022-present): Fundamentals of AI
TI3150TU (2021-present): Capstone Applied AI project
AE2223 (2017-present): Test, Analysis and Simulation
CS4305TU (2020-2021): Applied Machine Learning
AE3200 (2020-2021): Design Synthesis
Online courses

Work experience

2022 - present: Tenured Assistant Professor, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
2019 - 2022: Assistant Professor, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
2015 - 2019: PhD Candidate, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
2012 - 2015: Academic Program Coordinator, International Space University, Strasbourg, France
2011 - 2012: Aerospace Researcher, ASCAMM Technology Centre, Barcelona, Spain
2007 - 2011: Aerospace Engineer & IT Manager, Barcelona Aerospace Technology Centre, Spain

Education

2015 - 2019: Ph.D. in Air Traffic Management, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. (dissertation: Open aircraft performance modeling)
2007 - 2010: M.Sc. of Aerospace Science and Technology, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Barcelona.
2003 - 2007: B.Sc. of Electronic and Information Technology, Beijing University of Post and Telecommunication, Beijing, China.

Awards and personal grants

2024: Best paper of the session, 42th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (first author, paper)
2023: Open Science Fund, Dutch Research Council (more info)
2023: Best paper of the session, 41th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (paper)
2022: Climate Action Seed Fund, TU Delft (more info)
2022: Embassy Science Fellowship, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Dutch Research Council (more info)
2022: Best paper award, 10th International Conference on Research in Air Transportation (first author, paper)
2020: Best paper award, 9th International Conference on Research in Air Transportation (first author, paper)
2019: SESAR Young Scientist Award, SESAR Joint Undertaking (more info)
2017: Best paper award, 12th USA/Europe Air Traffic Management Research and Development Seminar

Other activities

Journal of Open Aviation Science: curator and editor-in-chief (2022-present)
OpenSky Network: honorary member (2022-present), panel of development and innovation (2024-present)
OpenSky Symposium: program chair (2021), general chair (2022), program committee (2020-present)
TU Delft, Young Academy: board member (2023-present)
TU Delft open science community: member (2019-present) / board member (2023-present)
Open Aviation Data initiative
(Past) TU Delft AE: Workers council’s personnel committee member (2020-2023)