Department of Physics and Astronomy · Western University

Denis Vida

Adjunct Research Professor · Research Scientist

Sky:
Portrait of Denis Vida
Denis Vida, PhD

I founded and lead the Global Meteor Network, more than 1,600 cameras in 45 countries that have measured over 2.8 million meteor orbits with open-source software I develop. I am co-PI and technical lead of Project Luciole, an optical satellite tracking system now running at four sites across Canada with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), and I lead the Western Contrail Research Project, which observes aircraft contrails day and night and matches each one to the flight that made it. Since 2023 I have raised over $1.7 million as principal investigator (PI) or co-PI, built a team of about ten people, and taken both new programs from first prototypes to systems that run every day.

I am an Adjunct Research Professor and Research Scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Western University in London, Ontario. I build and lead research programs that turn low-cost sensors, large data sets and machine learning into answers for science, industry and government. My work spans three areas: meteor physics and planetary defence, space situational awareness and climate change mitigation. I study everything natural that enters Earth's atmosphere, from micrometre dust to potentially hazardous asteroids, and use the same cameras and software to track satellites and space debris and to measure contrails, one of the largest and most uncertain parts of aviation's climate footprint. The GMN also records satellites and rocket bodies as they re-enter the atmosphere, and we are using it to build the first systematic catalogue of optically observed re-entries.

As the GMN's founder (how it started), I direct its research, strategy and technology: the hardware, the open-source software stack, the central data infrastructure, and the international volunteer community that keeps it running.

Animation: two cameras record the same meteor and triangulate its path, then a bright fireball flares, slows down and drops meteorites
Meteors and fireballs. Two or more cameras see the same meteor; triangulating it gives the trajectory and the orbit it came from. How a bright fireball flares and slows down shows how strong and dense the object is, and whether meteorites reached the ground.
Animation: an aircraft leaves a contrail that a ground camera outlines and matches to the flight
Contrails. Day and night, the same cameras watch contrails form and spread, and match each one to the flight that made it.
Animation: a satellite crosses the twilight sky and a camera array records its track
Satellites. Wide-field camera arrays track satellites and debris, measuring their orbits and how bright they are. Meteor cameras also see them break up when they re-enter.

Selected work

A few results from each of the three areas. The full list is on the Publications page.

Meteor physics and planetary defence

Space situational awareness

Climate change mitigation

Where we are going

We are well on our way. Luciole runs at four sites across Canada, the contrail pipeline produces tens of thousands of observations a month, and our data already feed work at Google Research and in the European E-CONTRAIL 2 consortium. Keeping this momentum depends on long-term support; see supporting this work.

Leading the program

Today my role is as much leadership as research. I founded the GMN, I am co-PI and technical lead of Project Luciole, and I lead the Western Contrail Research Project, where I coordinate the work, raise the funding and work with external partners. I manage a team of about ten people, including staff, research programmers, and graduate and undergraduate students. As principal investigator (PI) or co-PI I have secured over $1.7 million from industry, government and philanthropy. I scope and negotiate contracts, set deliverables and timelines, report to external stakeholders, and translate research into results partners can act on.

My training in computer engineering underpins all of it. I build production Python and C++ data pipelines, apply machine learning to detection and inference at scale, administer Linux systems, and take prototypes all the way to operational systems running worldwide.

I am always glad to connect with people working on aviation and space sustainability, Earth observation and applied AI: dvida@uwo.ca.

At a glance