Professor Ömer Gülder of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) has been named the new holder of the J. Armand Bombardier Foundation Chair in Aerospace Flight. Professor Gülder succeeds Professor Chris Damaren and the inaugural chair holder, Professor Zingg, who held the chair from 2009.
The J. Armand Bombardier Foundation Chair in Aerospace Flight is a partnership between the J. Armand Bombardier Foundation and the University of Toronto, who both gave $1 million to create the chair in 2001. This has made a major positive impact on UTIAS’s ability to deliver world-class education and research in aeronautics and space and is greatly appreciated. The role of the Chair, as described in the Agreement between the J. Armand Bombardier Foundation and the Governing Council of the University of Toronto is to contribute significantly to the body of scholarship on flight mechanics, flight simulation, and aircraft efficiency and safety.
Professor Gülder has been at UTIAS since 2001. He served as Associate Director from 2007 to 2016. His research areas include turbulent combustion, sustainable aviation fuels, soot aerosol formation, thermal stability of aviation jet fuels, optical combustion diagnostics, and aviation’s impact on climate change. He is a Fellow of The Combustion Institute, the Canadian Academy of Engineering and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is the co-author of 159 journal publications and 235 conference papers, and has the highest citation numbers and h-indices among the UTIAS faculty.