You can reach John at john_sykes@sfu.ca.

John started his career as an avalanche professional in 2011 working as a mountaineering guide and avalanche educator in Alaska. Feeling the draw to further his education in snow science, he completed a MSc at the Snow and Avalanche Laboratory at Montana State University. After that he worked as a guest physical scientist for the National Park Service in Wrangell St Elias and Denali National Parks, during which he was accepted to the SARP program as a PhD student. Since then he has been chipping away at his PhD research. Starting in winter of 2021/2022, he also took an avalanche forecasting role with Chugach National Forest in Girdwood, Alaska to balance his research focus with developing more applied avalanche experience. 

John has a wide range of research interests, ranging from physical sciences to psychology and has acquired a diversity of experiences in the field. His PhD research combines these skill sets, working on developing automated avalanche terrain models and using GPS tracking data to understand the decision-making process of professional ski guides. He works closely with expert guides to try and combine their perspective of decision-making with detailed spatial information from the GPS and terrain data. His goal is to capture institutional knowledge of experience guides and build the foundation for future decision-making tools. 

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John’s publications at SARP

Click here for a full listing of SARP publications.

John’s software packages

Click here for a full listing of SARP software packages.

John’s research presentation videos