About Me

I am a researcher passionate about making air transportation more open and more sustainable . I am an assistant professor at TU Delft, working and researching in the domain of air traffic management at the Aerospace Engineering Faculty.
I enjoy creating open-source tools, and developed a few popular open tools for aviation research, including pyModeS and OpenAP. I have authored the book The 1090 Megahertz Riddle.
What’s up?
Currently, with colleagues around the globe, we are building the Journal of Open Aviation Science, a diamond open-access journal (free to publish and access), which promotes open source and reproducibility in aviation research.
Research interests
- Air traffic management
- Aviation sustainability
- Data science and AI
- Emission modeling, assessment, and mitigation
- Policy for future air-ground transport
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
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 scholarships
- 2023: Open Science Fund, Dutch Research Council (more info)
- 2022: Climate Action Seed Fund, TU Delft (more info)
- 2022: Embassy Science Fellowship, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Dutch Research Council (more info) (video on Erasmus-Descartes Conference)
- 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
- TU Delft data champion / open science community member (2019-present)
- Workers council, AE personnel committee member (2020-present)
- Honorary member, OpenSky Network (2022-present)
- OpenSky Symposium: general chair (2022), program chair (2021), program committee (2020-present)
- Open Aviation Data initiative
- Curator and editor-in-chief of Journal of Open Aviation Science
© Copyright
2023
Junzi Sun