Interested in joining?
Although I have funds to pay for students, bringing your own funding always looks good on a CV! Some of these links explain a few possibilities. The deadlines are only indicative, and prospective members should contact me well in advance.
Undergraduate students: I do not accept applications to volunteer! This practice is illegal in Ontario, and deeply unfair to students of merit who cannot afford to work for free. To do undergraduate research in my group, you need to either earn credits (via e.g., PHY37X/47X or ESC499 at UofT) or financial support via competitive awards. See here for a comprehensive list of opportunities and up-to-date detail on procedures, deadlines, etc.
Most opportunities are for Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Foreign students want to take a good look at the UTEA.
Graduate students: prospective graduate students have to go through the regular application and admissions process of the Department of Physics. Check out the website to figure out how.
Post-docs:
As announced above, I hardly ever have funding for post-docs, including at the time I am writing these lines. Alternatives to consider:
- You can explore the various avenues offered by NSERC: English/français. Once again, it is easier to be a Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident, but international applicants might want to look at the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship. The latter is extremely competitive, to the point that it is mostly a waste of time and energy. The process for applying starts sometime in the summer.
- The Faculty of Arts & Science at UofT offers (very competitive) post-doctoral fellowships. Deadline: Winter, changes often.
- The Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is available for Indigenous and/or Black postdoctoral researchers. Also extremely competitive, deadline to apply is late winter.
Current graduate students
(Jan. 2026 – now) Hanfu recently joined my group and at the time I am writing these lines, they are deciding on which project to choose. Stay tuned!
(Sept. 2022 - now) Erin is studying the role of ageostrophic instabilities and adiabatic processes in the process of frontogenesis. They use analytical models and numerical simulations with Oceananigans.
Current undergraduate students
(Sept. 2025 – Apr. 2026) Yasaman is back in our group to study the generation of internal solitary waves and their interactions with modal internal tides.
(May – Aug. 2025) Marty is working on how to diagnose Ekman-Inertial Instability (a type of sub-surface submesoscale instability) in numerical simulations of baroclinic fronts. He uses Dedalus.
(Sept. 2025 – Apr. 2026) Thomas studies the impact of high-frequency wind forcing on the shape of a submesoscale front.
PI
After a post-doc at the Courant Institute (NYU) and Stanford University, I joined my current department in 2015. I am primarily interested in fundamental dynamics of small-scale internal waves and internal tides, their interactions with balanced (in the general sense, not limited to geostrophy) flows, and ageostrophic instabilities of submesoscale flows. I mostly use theory and idealized simulations, but in moments of weakness sometimes, I can be convinced to use data science methods.
Alumni
Former post-docs
- Han Wang (2020-2022).
- Internal tide-balanced flow disentanglement.
- Now Project Leader at the University of Hamburg's Institute of Oceanography.
- Christos Papoutsellis (2020).
- Semi-analytical internal tide radiation. (Was affiliated with the Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse at the time.)
- Now Assistant Project Scientist at the UC San Diego's Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department.
- Barbara Zemskova (2019-2021).
- Rotating, stratified flow/topography interactions; Southern Ocean carbon storage; Submesoscale instabilities.
- Now Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo.
Former graduate students
- Cécile Le Dizes (Ph.D. 2025)
- Thesis: Modélisation tridimensionnelle de la génération de la marée interne océanique par des reliefs isolés. (Three-dimensional modelling of internal tide generation over isolated bathymetry.)
- Now on vacation, will soon look for a post-doc in Europe or Canada.
- Fabiola Trujano-Jiménez (M.Sc. 2025)
- Thesis: Two-dimensional Ekman-Inertial Instability: A comparison with Inertial Instability.
- Mikhail Schee (Ph.D. 2024).
- Thesis: Thermohaline staircases in the Arctic Ocean: Detection, evolution, and interaction
- Now Post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto's Department of Physics
- Jeffrey Uncu (Ph.D. 2024).
- Thesis: The Scattering of Internal Tides By Balanced Flows
- Now at TD securities
- Kelly Foran (M.Sc. 2017)
- Thesis: Modelling Internal Wave Propagation through Layered Fluid using Spectrally-Based DNS
Former undergraduate students
- Samuel Kostousov (Summer 2025; DSI SUDS)
- Yasaman Yazdani (May 2024 – Apr. 2025; NSERC USRA, then PHY371)
- Jewel Cao (Summer 2024; CGCS)
- Haoyuan Shi (Winter 2024; PHY478)
- Tianxing Zheng (2023-24; PHY479)
- Yutong "Sarah" Han (Summer 2022; PHY478)
- Kerryn Van Rooyen (Summer 2022; CGCS)
- Sam De Abreu (Sept. 2021 – Aug. 2023; PHY479)
- Rundong Zhou (Sept. 2020 – Aug. 2022; ESC499)
- Rosalie Cormier (May 2021 – Aug. 2023; CGCS)
- Jack Farrell (May 2020 – Aug. 2021; NSERC USRA)
- Zirui "Ellen" Wan (Jan. 2020 – Aug. 2021; PHY479)
- Yviel Castillejos (Summer 2020; CGCS)
- Kerryn Van Rooyen (Summer 2020; ESROP)
- Heng Li (May 2019 – Aug. 2020; CGCS, then PHY479)
- Sammohith Nittala (Summer 2019; UBC co-op)
- Nikki Rahnamaei (Summer 2019; PHY479)
- Tim Tian (Summer 2019; NSERC USRA)
- Michael Poon (April 2019 – Aug. 2021; Physics SURF)
- Zi Cong "Daniel" Guo (2017-18; GS-REX)
- Christian Drago (Winter 2018; PHY478)
- Alice Nuz (Nov. 2017 – Aug. 2021; ESC499)
- Binderiya Adishaa (Summer 2017; Physics SURF)
- Armanpreet Pannu (Summer 2017; NSERC USRA)
- James Webber (Summer 2017)
- Morgan Fox (Summer 2016)
- Maheyer Shroff (Summer 2016)
- Japinder Nijjer (Summer 2015)