Dr. Jun Cao

Do you know Canada ranks as the second country in the world with the most tornadoes per year? As often observed, the damage severity is not the same for each residence within a community hit by a tornado. It is catastrophic for some dwellings while mild for others. Is the fate of each residence predictable before the community is faced with this type of disastrous weather? Jun Cao wants to address that.

As an expert in advanced numeric methods, Cao has spent his career applying mathematics to diverse engineering problems, including in aerospace and with particular applications such as groundwater and fuel cells. His most recent project is among his most ambitious: developing computer simulation tools to study tornado dynamics. Some predictions obtained from his simulations have been confirmed by experimental researchers, and Cao and his students have published papers on the subject. “Our progress has been very gratifying because tracking tornado dynamics is incredibly complex,” he says. 

Tornado dynamics is a dramatic example of what Cao loves about his work. “The purpose of science is to improve our lives,” he says. Making the twister mechanism clearer and improving building design are two ways to do that.