Credits:

Carolyn Ng, Karen Fox, Troy Cline, Bryan Stephenson and Elaine Lewis of ADNET Systems, Inc.; Eugene Major of Cadence Group; NASA Goddard Library; Sten Odenwald of the Space Math project; Barbara Thompson of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center; and Beth Barbier who worked on the beginning phase of the project.

Many thanks to Greg Good, the Spencer Weart Director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics for his advice. Dozens of scientists, including many in the Goddard Heliophysics Science Division provided reviews. The timeline was put together by Jim Spadaccini and his associates at Ideum, and evaluated by Hilarie Davis of Technology for Learning Consortium, Inc. Interviews were conducted by Troy Cline and published by Bryan Stephenson as podcasts on http://sunearthday.nasa.gov.

This project is based upon work supported by the Science Mission Directorate of NASA under EPOESS grant number NNX11AJ61G. Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc. managed the grant.

Special thanks to the following experts who provided audio interviews:

Baker, Daniel N.

Dr. Daniel Baker is Director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences and Professor of Physics. His primary research interest is the study of plasma physical and energetic particle phenomena in planetary magnetospheres and in the Earth's vicinity. Following postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology, he joined the physics research staff at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and became Leader of the Space Plasma Physics Group at LANL in 1981. From 1987 to 1994, he was the Chief of the Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. From 1994 to present he has been at the University of Colorado. Dr. Baker obtained his Ph.D. degree with James A. Van Allen at the University of Iowa and is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Benson, Robert

Dr. Robert Benson's main research interests are in linear and nonlinear plasma wave phenomena, ionospheric and magnetospheric physics, and planetary radio emissions. His approach has been to use the terrestrial ionosphere and magnetosphere as a space plasma laboratory. This system is the most readily accessible space plasma for cost-effective high-resolution in situ and remote investigations and some of the processes operating there have similar counterparts elsewhere in astrophysical plasmas. This research has been mainly based on the analysis of data from ionospheric topside sounders on the Alouette and ISIS satellites, passive receivers on ISSE 3, the low-power sounder (relaxation sounder) on the Ulysses spacecraft, and the bi-static sounder on the joint Canadian/US OEDIPUS C sounding-rocket experiment. Dr. Benson is leading an effort to produce digital records from a selected portion of the original Alouette/ISIS analog telemetry tapes. He is also a participating scientist on the IMAGE mission (Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration). Dr. Benson received his B.S. in Geophysics and M.S. in Physics from the University of Minnesota. He has a Ph.D. in Geophysics from the University of Alaska (1963). Dr. Benson was an IGY (1956-1958) Research Scientist in Antarctica. He joined NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center in 1964 as an NRC postdoctoral research associate and has been a NASA/GSFC Space Scientist since 1965. From 1984-1986, he served as Chair of the US National Committee for URSI Commission H and Chair of the International URSI Commission on Waves in Plasmas (1990-1993). Dr. Benson is currently an emeritus researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Bogdan, Thomas J.

Dr. Thomas J. Bogdan is the sixth president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). As a researcher, administrator, educator, and science advocate and entrepreneur, Dr. Bogdan has led UCAR in its mission of providing science in service to society through innovative partnerships with UCAR’s 78 member universities and 26 academic affiliates.

A world authority on solar-terrestrial physics, Dr. Bogdan began his scientific training at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, from which he graduated summa cum laude in 1979 with a degree in physics and mathematics. He earned a doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago in 1984, specializing in plasma astrophysics, and came to UCAR as a postdoctoral researcher in NCAR's High Altitude Observatory, where he investigated solar magnetic activity and magnetohydrodynamics. He has completed advanced training programs in leadership and business management from the Federal Executive Institute and E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Dr. Bogdan was Visiting Gauss Professor at Göttingen University Observatory and then a researcher at the Max Planck Institute. He returned to NCAR in 1995 to lead the High Altitude Observatory's Solar-Terrestrial Research Program; during this time, he also began developing and teaching graduate courses at the University of Colorado Boulder.

From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Bogdan served as the National Science Foundation's program director for solar-terrestrial physics in Washington, D.C., managing grant proposals totaling over $6 million per year. He was instrumental in developing NSF’s first bridged faculty program in the space sciences, which resulted in the creation of eight new tenure track faculty lines devoted to solar-terrestrial research and education at U.S. universities.

Dr. Bogdan returned to NCAR in 2003 to assume senior management positions as the acting director of the Advanced Study Program and the acting associate NCAR director for societal and environmental programs. In 2006, he left NCAR to join the Senior Executive Service and lead the country's civil operational space weather program, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Program. As SWPP director, he represented the space weather enterprise across every affected sector of government and society, working with federal and commercial stakeholders at home and abroad. Under Dr. Bogdan’s leadership, the NWS’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction successfully transitioned the first numerical space weather prediction model into operations and increased its customer base six-fold between 2006 and 2012, when Dr. Bogdan left government service to rejoin UCAR.

Dr. Bogdan has published more than 100 scientific papers and is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the Royal Astronomical Society. He is an active member of numerous other scientific societies, including the American Astronomical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, International Astronomical Union, Sigma Xi, National Defense Industry Association, and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Davila, Joseph M.

Dr. Joseph M. Davila earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Lamar University, Beaumont, TX in 1972, a BS in Physics from the University of California, Irvine in 1978 and a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Arizona in 1982. Dr. Davila was Principal Investigator for the Solar Extreme-ultraviolet R Telescope and Spectrograph (SERTS) and has conducted research in the structure of the solar corona.

His research interests have included the linear and non-linear theory of hydromagnetic waves; hydromagnetic instabilities due to energetic particle beams, resonance absorption in inhomogeneous plasmas, the acceleration of high speed wind streams in solar and stellar coronal holes, and plasma heating in closed magnetic structures. Dr. Davila has also published research on the acceleration of cosmic rays, the transport of energetic, particles within the Galaxy, the modulation of Galactic cosmic rays by the solar wind and the propagation of solar cosmic rays in the interplanetary medium.

Dr. Davila is currently an Astrophysicist in the Solar Physics Branch at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and he is a member of the American Astronomical Society.

Fairfield, Donald H.

Dr. Donald H. Fairfield is an Emeritus researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center where he has participated in spacecraft experiments for more than 30 years. He has been a co-investigator on more than 8 magnetic field and plasma experiments and has conducted pioneering research in many areas of magnetospheric physics including the foreshock, the bow shock, the magnetosheath and the magnetotail. His current prime interest is the earth's magnetotail and boundary layer. He is currently NASA's Project Scientist for Geotail. Dr. Fairfield is a member of the American Geophysical Union and has served as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research. He has received an Editor's Citation for Excellence in Refereeing from both the Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics) and Geophysical Research Letters.

Feynman, Joan

Dr. Joan Feynman has made important contributions to the study of solar wind particles and fields; sun-Earth relations; and magnetospheric physics. In particular, Feynman is known for developing an understanding of the origin of auroras. She is also known for creating a model that predicts the number of high-energy particles likely to hit a spacecraft over its lifetime, and for uncovering a method for predicting sun spot cycles. Dr. Feynman is the younger sister of physicist Richard Feynman.

Dr. Feynman earned her Bachelor's degree from Oberlin College. She later attended Syracuse University, where she studied solid-state theory. During her graduate years, Dr. Feynman took a year off to live in Guatemala, where she studied the anthropology of the Maya peoples living there. Dr. Feynman eventually earned her doctorate in physics in 1958 and her thesis was on the "absorption of infrared radiation in crystals of diamond-type lattice structure.” She also completed postdoctoral work at Columbia University.

Dr. Feynman spent the bulk of her career studying the interactions between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere. While working at the NASA Ames Research Center in 1971, Feynman discovered that the periodic spouting of solar material known as a solar coronal mass ejection (CME) could be identified by the presence of helium in the solar wind. This was an important find because, although CME's were known at the time, they had until then been difficult to detect.

After her time at NASA Ames, Dr. Feynman moved on to a number of different research posts. These included positions with the High Altitude Observatory; the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado; the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC; and Boston College in Massachusetts. Finally in 1985, Dr. Feynman accepted a position at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where she remained until her retirement.

As part of her research, Dr. Feynman made a critical discovery about the nature and cause of auroras. Using data collected by Explorer 33, she demonstrated that the occurrence of auroras is a product of the interaction between the Earth's magnetosphere and the magnetic field of the solar wind.

In 1974, Feynman became the first woman to be elected as an officer of the American Geophysical Union. She also organized an AGU committee charged with advancing the fair treatment of women within the geophysics community. Dr. Feynman has been a longstanding member of the International Astronomical Union and was a member of a number of the IAU's subdivisions, including: Division E Sun and Heliosphere; Division G Stars and Stellar Physics; and Division E Commission 49 Interplanetary Plasma & Heliosphere. In 2002, Dr. Feynman was named as one of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's elite senior research scientists and also in 2002, she was awarded NASA's distinguished Exceptional Achievement Medal.

Dr. Feynman retired from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a senior scientist in 2003. But she continued to work, publishing as recently as 2009 on the influence of solar activity on the climate of the first millennium. During her career, Dr. Feynman was an author or co-author of more than 100 scientific publications and also edited three scientific books.

Fisher, Richard

Dr. Richard Fisher graduated with honors, Phi Beta Kappa, in Mathematics from Grinnell College in 1961. After receiving his Ph.D. degree in Astrogeophysics from the University of Colorado in 1965, he became a staff member of the Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii. Following that, he became a staff astrophysicist at the USAF Sacramento Peak Observatory, and later was a Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder CO. He was a Co-Investigator on both the HCO SO-55 (SkyLab), and Coronagraph/Polarimeter (SMM) experiments. While at HAO he was the Project Manager and Principal Investigator for the Mk III project at the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, Mauna Loa, Hawaii. He joined the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. in 1991 as the Head of the Solar Physics Branch. Principal Investigator for the SPARTAN 201 White Light Coronagraph investigation, he has served recently as the Payload Scientist for five Space Shuttle Missions (STS - 56, -64, -69, -87, and -95). He was the NASA Ultraviolet Coronagraph-Spectrometer (UVCS) Telescope Scientist for the SOHO Mission, the TRACE-SMEX Mission Scientist, and the Payload Scientist for the STS-87 Space Shuttle flight. Prior to leaving the GSFC, Dr. Fisher was the Senior Project Scientist for NASA's Living with A Star Project, and Chief of the Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics. Recent successful launches for projects within the Laboratory include the Microwave Anisotropy Mission (MAP) and the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager Mission (RHESSI). Dr. Fisher is a life member of the American Geophysical Union, and a member of the International Astronomical Union and the American Astronomical Society. He is the recipient of both the NASA Exceptional Achievement and Exceptional Service Medals. Research interests include research on topics of solar magnetic evolution and the solar corona; especially as they relate to the physical characteristics and physical processes of the outer layers of the Sun and the impact on humanity and technology. He has been the Director of the Sun-Earth Connection Division since March 2002.

Fisk, Lennard A.

Dr. Lennard A. Fisk is the Thomas M. Donahue Distinguished University Professor of Space Science at the University of Michigan, where from 1993-2003 he was Chair of the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences. He currently serves as Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Space Studies Board. Prior to joining the University in July 1993, Prof. Fisk was the Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In this position he was responsible for the planning and direction of all NASA programs concerned with space science and applications and for the institutional management of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Prior to becoming Associate Administrator in April 1987, Prof. Fisk served as Vice President for Research and Financial Affairs and Professor of Physics at the University of New Hampshire. In his administrative position, he was responsible for overseeing the University’s research activities and was the chief financial officer of the University. Prof. Fisk joined the faculty of the Department of Physics at the University of New Hampshire in 1977, and founded the Solar-Terrestrial Theory Group in 1980. He was an astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from 1971 to 1977, and a National Academy of Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Goddard from 1969 to 1971.

Prof. Fisk is the author of more than 160 publications on energetic particle and plasma phenomena in space. He is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA); he is a Foreign Member of Academia Europaea and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. He is a co-founder of the Michigan Aerospace Corporation, a Director of the Orbital Sciences Corporation, a recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1992, the AIAA Space Science Award in 1994, and the IAA Basic Science Award in 1997.

Golpaswamy, Natchimuthuk

Dr. Nat Gopalswamy is a staff scientist at the Solar System Exploration Division of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. He holds the position of Astrophysicist in the Laboratory for Planetary Magnetospheres. Before joining NASA, he had held the positions of Research Professor at the Catholic University of America and Associate Research Scientist position at the University of Maryland, College Park. He was a Senior Resident Research Associate of the National Research Council at the Goddard Space Flight Center (1998-2000). Dr. Gopalswamy received his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (1982) and did his post-doctoral training at the University of Maryland, College Park (1985). He was briefly (1983-1985) the Resident Scientist of the Kodaikanal Observatory of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics before moving to the United States.

Over the past two decades, Dr. Gopalswamy has been engaged in solving problems in solar and solar terrestrial physics using data from various large radio telescopes and space missions. In particular, he is interested in coronal mass ejections and their impact on Earth and on the heliosphere in the form of magnetic storms and particle radiation. In the recent years, he has been extensively involved in the analysis of Yohkoh, SOHO, Wind and ACE data in conjunction with radio and optical images obtained by ground-based instruments. Dr. Gopalswamy’s research interests include solar terrestrial physics and solar radio astronomy. He is a member of the SOHO team engaged in studying coronal mass ejections using SOHO and Wind spacecraft data. He has published more than 150 papers, mostly first-authored.

Some of the notable discoveries of Dr. Gopalswamy: radio CME (1992), Umbral oscillations in microwaves (1993), transient microwave brightenings (1995), three-part CME using non-coronagraphic observations (1996), Effective interplanetary acceleration of CMEs (2000), Colliding CMEs (2001), High-latitude CMEs and solar polarity reversal (2003), Empirical shock arrival model (2005).

Dr. Gopalswamy is actively involved in NASA’s Living with a Star (LWS) program in organizing the Coordinated Data Analysis Workshops (commonly known as CDAWs). He is an associate editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics). Dr. Gopalswamy served as the Workshop Coordinator for the US National Science Foundation’s SHINE program and a member of its steering committee (2003-2005). He is also the International Coordinator for the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) 2007 program and a member of its international executive committee. He also plays organizational roles in IAU, SCOSTEP, and CAWSES. He has served as a member of NASA’s 2005 Sun-Solar System Connection Roadmap committee.

Green, James L.

Dr. James L. Green received his Ph.D. in Space Physics from the University of Iowa in 1979 and began working in the Magnetospheric Physics Branch at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in 1980. At Marshall, Dr. Green developed and managed the Space Physics Analysis Network that provided scientists all over the world with rapid access to data, to other scientists, and to specific NASA computer and information resources. In addition, Dr. Green was a Safety Diver in the Neutral Buoyancy tank making over 150 dives until he left MSFC in 1985.

From 1985 to 1992 he was the head of the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The NSSDC is NASA's largest space science data archive. In 1992, he became the Chief of the Space Science Data Operations Office until 2005, when he became the Chief of the Science Proposal Support Office. While at GSFC, Dr. Green was a co-investigator and the Deputy Project Scientist on the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) mission. He has written over 100 scientific articles in refereed journals involving various aspects of the Earth's and Jupiter's magnetospheres and over 50 technical articles on various aspects of data systems and networks.

In August 2006, Dr. Green became the Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters. Over his career, Dr. Green has received numerous awards. In 1988, he received the Arthur S. Flemming award given for outstanding individual performance in the federal government and was awarded Japan's Kotani Prize in 1996 in recognition of his international science data management activities.

Guhathakurta, Madhulika

As a NASA astrophysicist, Dr. Madhulika Guhathakurta (also known as Lika) has had the opportunity to work as a scientist, mission designer, instrument builder, directing and managing science programs and teacher and spokesperson for NASA's mission and vision in the Heliophysics Division. Occasionally, she performs all of these roles in a single day.

Before joining NASA Headquarters in December of 1998, her career has focused on studying the importance of the scientific exploration of space in particular understanding the Sun as a star and its influence on the planet Earth, with research focus on understanding the magneto hydrodynamics of the Sun’s outermost layer, the solar corona. She has been a Co-Investigator on five Spartan 201 missions on aboard space shuttles to study the solar corona in white-light and UV radiation and has authored over 70 publications.

Dr. Guhathakurta is a co-chair on the inter-agency Committee on Space Weather of the National Space Weather Program and a member of the SWx working group in UNCOPUOS. Education and outreach is another strong passion of Dr. Guhathakurta. To that effect she has helped create graduate level text books in heliophysics. To popularize heliophysics, she partnered with the American Museum of Natural History in New York to produce two popular full dome planetarium shows that are being exhibited internationally and used by teachers to excite the next generation of space scientists. She also helped produce a 3D IMAX show utilizing the observations from the STEREO mission.

Dr. Guhathakurta is the Lead Program Scientist for NASA's initiative called "Living With a Star" (LWS), which focuses on understanding and ultimately predicting solar variability and its diverse effects on Earth, human technology and astronauts in space. The systems science behind this new kind of weather outside of Earth’s terrestrial atmosphere is known as "Space Weather”. She is also the Program Scientist for “Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory” (STEREO), which provided the first-ever stereoscopic measurements to study the Sun and the nature of its coronal mass ejections, or CMEs and their impact on space-weather.

She is presently the LWS Program Scientist for the “Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) (also known as the Van Allen Probes), which were launched in August 2012. In addition to leading science missions for the LWS program, Dr Guhathakurta also manages a theory, modeling and data analysis program to integrate scientific output, data, and models to generate a comprehensive, systems understanding of Sun-Heliosphere-Planets coupling.

Dr. Guhathakurta is leading an effort in an international initiative known as the “International Living With a Star” (ILWS) consisting of all the space agencies of the world to contribute towards the scientific goal for Space Weather understanding.

A native of India, Dr. Guhathakurta received her Masters in Astrophysics from University of Delhi and Ph.D. in Physics from University of Denver and University of Colorado at Boulder.

Hathaway, David H.

David Hathaway is the Heliophysics Team Lead at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He received his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado in 1979 where his thesis work was on the fluid dynamics of Jupiter’s interior. During the last 30 years he has done extensive research – observational, theoretical, and experimental – on the dynamics of the Sun’s convection zone and the origin of the sunspot cycle. While he is well known for his sunspot cycle studies and predictions he is also recognized as the inventor of VISAR – an image stabilization and registration tool (often used to clarify images from video in criminal cases) which was NASA’s Invention of the Year for 2002.

Hesse, Michael

Dr. Michael Hesse, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Director of the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. In this role he is responsible for a staff of about 300 civil servants, university scientists, and contractors engaged in solar and space research, instrumentation and mission development, and space environment modeling for NASA and partners. Dr. Hesse’s prior positions include that of Chief of GSFC’s Space Weather Laboratory, a research scientist appointment in the Electrodynamics Branch, and a postdoctoral fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He received his doctoral degree in Theoretical Physics at the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum, Germany. Dr. Hesse was the founding Director of the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC), for which he received NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal in 2007. Dr. Hesse’s responsibilities also include that of Lead Co-Investigator for Theory and Modeling for NASA’s Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) mission. Dr. Hesse serves or has served on numerous review, advisory, or steering committees, most recently on the Steering Committee of the 2013 Heliophysics Decadal Survey. Dr. Hesse remains a publishing research scientist, with more than 200 papers in the scientific literature. In addition to Space Weather-related topics, his research interests include the theory and modeling of kinetic space plasma processes throughout the Heliophysics domain. Dr. Hesse was elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2010. Dr. Hesse holds a Ph.D, in Theoretical Physics from the Rhur-Universitat, Bochum, Germany.

Hildner, Ernest

Dr. Hildner was Director of NOAA's Space Environment Center from 1986 until he retired in 2005. The Center (now renamed Space Weather Prediction Center) is the nation's 24-hour-a-day center for alerts, warnings and watches related to space weather; it also accumulates for archive much data relating to space weather. Under his direction, SEC conducted research and consulted on space weather instrument development for NOAA, NASA, and the US Air Force. Hildner led the Center's transition from a laboratory in NOAA Research into an operational National Center for Environmental Prediction in NOAA's National Weather Service.

He received the Department of Commerce Gold Medal and twice received the Presidential Rank Award for Senior Executive Service federal managers. Dr. Hildner holds a BA from Wesleyan University, an MA and a PhD in physics from the University of Colorado.

In addition to his administrative responsibilities with NOAA, including being NOAA's Program Manager for Space Weather, Hildner was a Co-chair of the Committee on Space Weather for the seven-agency National Space Weather Program of the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology, a member of the advisory committees for the NOAO National Solar Observatory and NCAR High Altitude Observatory, and served on review panels for NASA and DoD projects.

Kappenman, John

John Kappenman, owner of Storm Analysis Consultants, is one of the principal investigators under contract with the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP Commission). Mr. Kappenman has presented testimony before the US House Science Committee in October 2003 on the importance of geomagnetic storm forecasting for the electric power industry. He also was a principal investigator examining the "Vulnerability of the Electric Power Grid for Severe Geomagnetic Storms" for FEMA under US Presidential Executive Order 13407. He was also one of the Principal Contributors to the 2008 US National Academy of Sciences Report on "Severe Space Weather Events-Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts Workshop Report Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather Events. He is a member of the IEC Standards Development Committee for all EMP and High Energy Electomagnetic Compatibility Requirements.

Mr. Kappenman served as Adjunct Professor at University of Minnesota-Duluth Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering from 1995-1998. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering from South Dakota State University in 1976

Peredo, Mauricio

Dr. Mauricio Peredo is a Deputy Program Manager at Science, Systems, and Applications, Inc. (SSAI) for a nearly 400-person contract supporting science, engineering, and IT requirements for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

In 2012, he assumed the Chief Operating Officer post, with responsibility for overseeing SSAI contracts to assure program performance, schedule, and resource and cost control.

From 1992 to 2000, Dr. Peredo headed the Science Planning and Operations Facility for the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) program, and was a member of the GSFC Magnetospheric Modeling Group. As a government contractor to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Dr. Peredo served as Head of the Space Physics and Multidisciplinary Science Group, Manager of the Extraterrestrial Science Department, and finally Deputy Program Manager for Space Science, all supporting space science efforts at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Dr. Peredo has more than 24 years of professional experience in technical program management, program development, and research and modeling of plasma phenomena in space. Dr. Peredo holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as B.S. degrees in both physics and mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin.

Phillips, John

Dr. John Phillips is a former US astronaut at NASA with positions including systems engineering and CAPCOM for the International Space Station (ISS) and as a robotics specialist, supporting operations on missions. Dr. Phillips has logged more than 203 days in space during three flights and has flown as Flight Engineer on three different spacecraft types: Space Shuttle, Soyuz and ISS. He was selected by NASA and began astronaut candidate training in 1996.

On the STS-100 Endeavour (April 19 to May 1, 2001), Dr. Phillips was the Ascent/Entry Flight Engineer and was the Intravehicular Activity Coordinator during two spacewalks. On the ISS Expedition 11 (April 15 to October 10, 2005), Dr. Phillips launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard Soyuz TMA-6 and served as NASA Science Officer and Flight Engineer aboard ISS. During their 6-month stay aboard ISS, the crew continued ISS maintenance, worked with scientific experiments, performed a spacewalk in Russian spacesuits from the Pirs Airlock and hosted the “return to flight” visit of Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-114). In completing his second mission, Phillips logged 179 days and 23 minutes in space, including an EVA totaling 4 hours and 58 minutes.

On STS-119 Discovery (March 15 to 28, 2009), Dr. Phillips operated the Canadarm-2 robotic arm to unberth and install the S6 truss. He also served as Loadmaster, Rendezvous Mission Specialist and Crew Medical Officer.

Dr. Phillips graduated from Scottsdale High School, Arizona, in 1966; received a B.S. degree in mathematics from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1972; an M.S. in aeronautical systems from the University of West Florida in 1974; and an M.S. and Ph.D. in geophysics and space physics from UCLA in 1984 and 1987, respectively. He was National Merit Scholar; graduated second of 906 at USNA; awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal, NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Gagarin Medal, the Russian Medal of Merit for Space Exploration, the Los Alamos National Laboratory Distinguished Performance Award and various military awards.

Dr. Philips received a U.S. Navy commission in 1972 and was designated a Naval Aviator in November 1974. He flew the A-7 Corsair Aircraft and made overseas deployments with Attack Squadron 155 aboard the USS Oriskany and USS Roosevelt. Subsequent tours of duty included Navy recruiting and flying the CT-39 Sabreliner aircraft. Dr. Phillips has logged more than 4,500 flight hours and 250 carrier landings. He served as a Navy reservist from 1982 to 2002 as an A-7 pilot and in various nonflying assignments. He retired in 2002 with the rank of Captain, USNR.

After leaving the Navy in 1982, Phillips enrolled as a graduate student at UCLA. While there, he carried out research involving observations by the Pioneer Venus Spacecraft. Upon completing his doctorate in 1987, he was awarded an Oppenheimer Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. He worked at LANL for 9 years, performing research on the sun and the space environment. From 1993 to 1996, he was the Principal Investigator for the Solar Wind Plasma Experiment aboard the Ulysses Spacecraft as it executed a unique trajectory over the poles of the sun. He has authored 156 scientific papers dealing with the plasma environments of the sun, Earth, other planets, comets and spacecraft.

Poland, Art

Dr. Art Poland graduated with Honors in Astronomy from the University of Massachusetts in 1964. After receiving his Ph.D. degree in Astrophysics from Indiana University in 1969, he joined the staff at the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado. There he worked on problems of energy balance and non-local thermodynamic equilibrium in the solar atmosphere. He also joined the HAO Skylab team to work on the White Light Coronagraph experiment. He joined the Goddard Space Flight Center research team in 1980 and worked on the UVSP experiment on the Solar Maximum Mission. In 1986 he became the U.S. Project Scientist for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, also known as SOHO. From 1999 to 2003 he was the Senior Project Scientist for the Living With A Star Program, which is designed to study and understand the impacts of the Sun on Earth Systems. He is currently working in the School of Computational Sciences at George Mason University developing a graduate degree program in Space Weather.

Russell, Christopher T.

Professor C. T. Russell is a member of the faculties of both the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and the Department of Earth and Space Sciences. He is acting System-wide Director of IGPP. He is the head of the Space Physics Center in IGPP, UCLA and the Director of the UCLA Branch of the California Space Grant Consortium. He is the principal investigator on the POLAR mission; a co-investigator on the magnetometer team on the Cassini mission to Saturn; the ROMAP investigation on the Rosetta mission to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko; the IMPACT investigation on the STEREO mission to study solar and solar wind disturbances; the THEMIS mission to study substorms; and the magnetometer investigation on the Venus Express mission to study the solar wind interaction with Venus. He is the principal investigator of the Dawn mission to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres.

He received his B.Sc. from the University of Toronto 1964 and Ph.D from the University of California, Los Angeles 1968. Dr. Russell is a Fellow of American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also an Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society. He received the Macelwane Award (1977), and the Fleming medal (2003) from the American Geophysical Union; the COSPAR Science Award, 2002. Asteroid 21459 Chrisrussell was named after him by the IAU in 2008.

Schrijver, Karel

Dr. Karel Schrijver received his doctorate at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, on the topic of solar and stellar magnetic activity. After postdoctoral appointments at the University of Colorado and the European Space Agency, and a fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, he now is senior fellow at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center. His research focuses on the magnetic activity of the Sun, the coupling of the Sun's magnetic field into the heliosphere and its solar wind, the manifestations of magnetic activity of other Sun-like stars, and the impact of solar variability on society.

In addition to scientific research, he is actively involved in developing and operating space instrumentation: he was the science lead and later the Principal Investigator for the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) and for the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), and is co-investigator on the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on SDO and on the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) SMEX project. As LM Senior Fellow at the Advanced Technology Center, he is involved in defining and developing instrumentation for future heliophysics missions.

He has served in NASA advisory functions, including the NASA Sun-Earth Connection strategic planning (RoadMap) teams for 2000 and 2003, the panel on Theory and Modeling of the NASA Living-With-a-Star (LWS) initiative, the LWS Science Architecture Team, the LWS Mission Operations Working Group (MOWG; 2003-2005) the Solar-Heliospheric MOWG (2007-2009), the LWS TR&T Steering Group (2010, and 2012), the NASA Heliophysics Subcommittee (2010-…), and the Science Definition Teams of the Solar Orbiter and Solar Sentinels. He was a member of the NRC Space Studies Board (2002-2005).

His interests include disseminating newly developed understanding of our neighboring star and its influence on society to students and the general public. He co-authored the first textbook on solar and stellar magnetic activity and defined and led the first phase of the Heliophysics Summer School that resulted in a textbook series on heliophysics as an integrated science. He has written popular science papers in, for example, Sky and Telescope; he developed multiple posters and an annual calendar for public distribution; and he has been an advisor in, or contributor to, science programs for planetariums, an international IMAX production, and public television programs.

Thompson, Barbara J.

Dr. Barbara J. Thompson received her B.A. in Physics and Mathematics with a Minor in Geology from the University of Pennsylvania (1991). She obtained her Ph D. in Physics from the University of Minnesota (1996). Prior to working at NASA/GSFC, Dr. Thompson was employed as a graduate research assistant until 1996, where she studied the acceleration mechanisms of energetic electrons in the Earth's magnetosphere. She moved to NASA/GSFC after completing graduate school to serve as an operations scientist for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). In 1998, she began working for the Solar Physics Branch, and has participated in a number of instrument proposal and development projects. Currently her primary effort is focused on scientific research and the development of the Solar Dynamics Observatory for the Living With a Star program. Dr. Thompson is a member of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA).

Turner, Ron

Dr. Ron Turner is an internationally recognized expert in radiation risk management strategies for astronauts and is the Senior Science Advisor to the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. He has nearly thirty years of experience in advanced space systems analysis. As an ANSER Fellow, he studies the national response to extreme events.