SFU SARlab recently won an NSERC Alliance grant (with industrial partner MDA) titled:

“Enhancement of SAR research methods to identify and create community-centric mapping applications for Canada's North”.

The project pairs directed research and engineering development of advanced synthetic aperture radar methods with selected outreach to design applications for Canadian Northern communities to improve their daily livelihoods and empower traditional and scientific knowledge exchange (see concept flowchart).

Concretely we are looking for three PhD (or MSc) candidates to work on the following sub-topics (starting Summer/Fall 2026):

PhD1: “Arctic Marine methods” – Enhance spaceborne SAR characterization of the coastal ocean - Small vessel detection in complicated clutter: water, sea ice, icebergs

PhD/MSc2: DL - Change detection of linear features (Coastline, Infrastructure)

PhD3: Compact Polarimetry applications; SAR satellite image products for non-expert users. 

All three topics are “classical” engineering topics, with the third topic besides a general understanding of engineering methods additionally requires some enthusiasm and social skills on part of the candidate, to engage effectively with Northern communities.

Please refer to the MSc and PhD positions for general requirements.