Key people

Director of the Centre for High Altitude Platform Applications

David Grace has been a member of the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology at York since 1994. He received his PhD from University of York in 1999. He is now Professor (Research) and Head of the Communication Technologies Research Group.

David's current research interests include high altitude platform based communications; cognitive green radio; 5G system architectures; dynamic spectrum access and interference management.

He is currently a lead investigator on H2020 MCSA 5G-AURA and H2020 MCSA SPOTLIGHT. He was a one of the lead investigators on FP7 ABSOLUTE and focused on extending LTE-A for emergency/temporary events using aerial platforms. He was technical lead on the 14-partner FP6 CAPANINA project that dealt with broadband communications from high altitude platforms.

He is an author of over 240 papers, and author/editor of two books, including Broadband Communications from High Altitude Platforms.

He is the former Radio Communications working group chair for the COST action 297 – High Altitude Platform for Communications and Other Services. He is the former chair of IEEE Technical Committee on Cognitive Networks for the period 2013/4, and a founding member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Green Communications and Computing. In 2000, he jointly founded SkyLARC Technologies Ltd, and was one of its directors. He is also a Guest Professor at Zhejiang University.

Theme Leader for Atmospheric Science

Alastair was appointed as professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of York in 2006; previous to this he held the positions of Reader (at York) and Lecturer in the Schools of Chemistry and Environment at the University of Leeds.

Alastair was awarded the Desty Memorial Prize for Innovation in Separation Science in 2001, a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science in 2004, the Royal Society of Chemistry SAC Silver Medal in 2006 and the 2012 Royal Society of Chemistry John Jeyes Award for Environment, Energy and Sustainability.

Alastair has more than 180 peer reviewed publications and book chapters, and was editor of the textbook Multidimensional Chromatography by John Wiley & Sons.

Alastair is also currently Director for atmospheric composition at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), and also its Deputy Director. Between 2007 and 2013 he was seconded part-time as Technologies theme leader for the Natural Environment Research Council advising on its science and technology strategy and research investments.

Current research studies reactive organic carbon in the atmosphere and its contribution to global air pollution, the transport of pollutants in weather systems including regional and long range effects, inter-annual observations in the background atmosphere, composition and evolution of organic aerosols, theoretical and experimental approaches to high complexity mixtures, multidimensional and multiphase chromatography, microfluidics and miniaturised sensors, petrochemical composition and natural products analysis.

Alastair works extensively with industry, translating atmospheric chemical technologies into other fields. Recent collaborations include joint research projects with Markes International, the National Physical Laboratory, MoD and DSTL, Valco VICI, BP and AWE.

Andy White leads CHAPA’s technical activities. He is also the Manager of the Technical Support Services Group in the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology. He is responsible for development and coordination of key components of the CHAPA’s low altitude Helikite testbed, including the flight information package, backhaul data links, power management and system integration.

Previously he was instrumental in the development and execution of the broadband communications component of the FP6 CAPANINA trial programme, which successfully deployed a high-altitude balloon in the stratosphere. He has developed several wireless communication payloads and coordinated the trials for other types of aerial platform.

Andy is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a member of the IET.