D
Committee Biographical Information
LOUIS J. LANZEROTTI (NAE), Chair, is the Distinguished Research Professor of Physics at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), has spent four and one-half decades contributing to research that includes studies of space plasmas and geophysics, and engineering problems related to the impact of atmospheric and space processes on terrestrial technologies, and those in space. Prior to joining NJIT in 2003, Dr. Lanzerotti spent more than three decades at Bell Laboratories-Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ. Dr. Lanzerotti has been principal investigator or co-investigator on a number of NASA Earth observing, interplanetary and planetary missions including IMP, Voyager, Ulysses, Galileo, and Cassini. He is currently a principal investigator for instruments on NASA’s Radiation Belt Storm Probes mission in Earth’s magnetosphere. Dr. Lanzerotti’s research is directed toward understanding Earth’s upper atmosphere and space environments has also taken him to the Antarctic and the Arctic. Dr. Lanzerotti was selected as the 2011 William Bowie Medalist of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). He has also received the William Nordberg Medal for applications of space science from the International Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). Dr. Lanzerotti has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). He is the recipient of the 2012 Basic Science Award of the IAA. He holds a B.S. in engineering physics from the University of Illinois and a M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University. Dr. Lanzerotti has had extensive NRC service, most recently serving as chair of the NRC Committee on Electronic Vehicles Controls and Unintended Acceleration. He is currently a member of the Committee on Solar and Space Physics.
PAUL A. BERNHARDT is a senior research physicist in the plasma physics division at the Naval Research Laboratory where he has been conducting research at ionospheric modification facilities since 1985. He has worked at the Arecibo, EISCAT (European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association), Sura, and High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) heating facilities. Dr. Bernhardt has pioneered the use of chemical releases to study the ionosphere. His ionospheric modification experiments have been monitored with Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) systems around the world and with in situ plasma probes provided by NRL’s Plasma Physics Division. The Coherent Electromagnetic Radio Tomography (CERTO) and Computerized Ionospheric Tomography Receiver in Space (CITRIS) programs were started at NRL by Dr. Bernhardt to provide global, satellite-based sensors of ionospheric space weather. Dr. Bernhardt has published over 100 papers in ionospheric and space physics. He holds patents for hyper-spectral imaging and radio beacon design. He is a fellow of the APS, the European Physical Society (EPS) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has been an associate editor of the AGU’s Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR) and the Journal of Radio Science as well as a member of the AGU Books Board Editor. He is also a member of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) where he was chairman of the US Commission on Waves in Plasmas. Dr. Bernhardt received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He previously served on the NRC’s U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Radio Science.
HERBERT C. CARLSON is a research professor and scientific lead in the Department of Physics, Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences, at the Utah State University. His research interests include space and ionospheric physics, ionospheric modification with high power HF radio waves, and radio science. Prior to joining Utah State, he served for 7 years as Chief Scientist of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research within the cadre of the Senior Executive Service and was awarded the Presidential Rank Award for service to the nation. He is an elected foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Astronomical Society of London, and he is a fellow of the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Phillips Laboratory. His prior federal service also includes service as NSF program manager of aeronomy and atmospheric chemistry, as founding manager of the NSF upper atmospheric facilities program, as chief scientist at the Air Force geophysics laboratory (AFGL), and as deputy director and branch chief ionospheric physics at AFGL. He has also worked at Cornell University, Rice University, Yale University, and University of Texas, Dallas. Dr. Carlson has over 1300 citations to over 150 publications/books and an index of 30. He has served as advisor to 18 successful Ph.D. candidate students in the U.S. and abroad. He has chaired or served on advisory boards for organizations in industry, academia, and the federal government. He received his Ph.D. in space science from Cornell University.
ANTHEA J. COSTER is a principal research scientist at the MIT’s Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts. Her research interests include physics of the ionosphere, magnetosphere, and thermosphere; space weather and geomagnetic storm time effects; coupling between the lower and upper atmosphere; GPS positioning and measurement accuracy; radio wave propagation effects; and meteor detection and analysis. She is a co-principal investigator on the NSF supported Millstone Hill Geospace facility award and a principal investigator/co-principal investigator on a numerous projects involving the use of GPS to probe the atmosphere, including investigations of the plasmaspheric boundary layer, stratospheric warming, and the ionosphere over the Antarctic. Dr. Coster and her co-workers developed the first real-time ionospheric monitoring system based on GPS in 1991. She has been involved with measuring atmospheric disturbances over short baselines (GPS networks smaller than 100 km) for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, and has coordinated meteor research using the ALTAIR dual-frequency radar for NASA. Dr. Coster is the current secretary of the Satellite Division of the Institute of Navigation and the former chair of USNC/URSI commission G. She is currently involved with educational outreach programs that involve scientists in Africa, and teaching in incoherent scatter radar summer schools. She received her Ph.D. in space physics and astronomy from Rice University, and her graduate research involved ionospheric modification experiments at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Dr. Coster previously served on the NRC’s U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Radio Science.
JOHN C. FOSTER is an associate director and ionospheric and space physicist at MIT’s Haystack Observatory. His research interests include the physics of the magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere, geospace studies and magnetosphere-ionosphere-atmosphere coupling, space weather and storm-time effects, wave-particle interactions, incoherent scatter radar and radiophysics. He has worked with space and ground-based instrumentation and observations through research and management positions at the National Research Council of Canada, Utah State University, and MIT. He served for 25 years as the principal investigator for the MIT Millstone Hill incoherent scatter radar. Dr. Foster has had a 30-year involvement with the NSF CEDAR (Coupling, Energetic, and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions) research program and community and most recently served as chair of the CEDAR Science Steering Committee. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Maryland College Park. He has been on several NRC committees, including the Committee on Distributed Arrays of Small Instruments for Research and Monitoring in Solar-Terrestrial Physics: A Workshop, the Committee on Solar Terrestrial Research, the Committee on Solar and Space Physics, and he served as a member of the steering committee of the 2001 Decadal Survey of Solar and Space Physics.
SIXTO A. GONZALEZ is director for space and atmospheric sciences at the Arecibo Observatory, part of the Center for Geospace Studies at SRI International. Previously, he served as director of the Arecibo Observatory. His research interests include studies of the Earth’s upper atmosphere (specifically, the ionosphere-thermosphere and protonosphere-exosphere coupled systems) using incoherent scatter radars, satellites, and optical instruments together with physics based numerical models. Another major topic of research has been in the general area of incoherent scatter radar theory, for example, exploring ways to improve the experimental techniques in order to improve both the precision and accuracy of the radar observations. Dr. González has served on numerous NASA and NSF panels and committees including 2 terms a vice-chair of COSPAR commission C and one term as chair of the CEDAR science steering committee. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Utah State University.
DAVID L. HYSELL is a professor in the department of earth and atmospheric science at Cornell University. His research is in the area of space plasma physics with a concentration on theory and observations of plasma irregularities in the earth’s ionosphere. Dr. Hysell is the principal investigator of the NSF award that supports research at the Jicamarca Radio Observatory near Lima, Peru. He also performs experiments using a network of radars and other instruments with support from NSF, NASA, ONR, AFOSR, and DARPA. He currently serves as the chair of the CEDAR Science Steering Committee, is a member of the U.S. National Committee for URSI, and has just completed service on the Executive Committee for Space Physics and Aeronomy at the AGU. Dr. Hysell currently serves on the Committee on Solar and Space Physics, and recently completed service on the steering committee for the 2013 Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics. He is also an ex officio member of the NRC’s U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Radio Science.
BRETT ISHAM is a professor in the department of electrical engineering at Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, Bayamon. Dr. Isham has worked at the Swedish Institute for Space Physics in Kiruna, Sweden, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and at the EISCAT Observatories in Tromso, Norway, and Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean. Dr. Isham’s research has focused on the experimental study and remote sensing of microscopic plasma turbulence in the terrestrial ionosphere, primarily using radio and radar methods, and he is one of the discoverers of Langmuir turbulence occurring in the natural aurora. He has also been involved in projects to study tides, waves, and aerosols in the neutral atmosphere and the plasma dynamics of the solar corona. His current interests include plasma turbulence in the ionosphere, the development and application of phase-coherent radio receivers to the study of ionospheric plasma turbulence and radio orbital angular momentum, the development of electromagnetic vector sensor antennas for detection and identification of radio sources, lidar (laser radar) observations of aerosols and ions in the lower and middle atmosphere, and the use of conducting laser-plasma filaments in the neutral atmosphere for communications and remote sensing. Dr. Isham is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi, the American Geophysical Union, and the International Union of Radio Science (URSI). He received his Ph.D. in space physics from Cornell University.
ELIZABETH A. KENDALL is a research physicist at SRI International in Menlo Park California. Her research interests include observations of optical emissions caused by ionospheric modification, auroral and airglow imaging, lightning effects on the upper atmosphere, and education outreach. She is currently a participant in the BRIOCHE program and conducts experiments at the HAARP facility in Gakona Alaska. She has participated in HAARP campaigns for over a decade. Dr. Kendall is the principal investigator for the all-sky imagers at the Sondrestrom Research Facility in Kangerlussuaq Greenland and provides data to the community. She was co-principal investigator on the CESAR (Compact Echelle Spectrograph for Aeronomic Research) instrument, a major research instrument funded by NSF. Dr. Kendall served on the steering committee for the Radio Frequency Ionospheric Interactions workshop for 7 years, first as a student representative and then as a regular member. She has also served on the steering
committee for NSF’s ISR Summer Schools for over five years, participating both in organizing the schools and as a lecturer. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
KRISTINA A. LYNCH is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College. Prior to arriving at Dartmouth, Dr. Lynch was a research assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire. Her research focuses on auroral space plasma physics, ionospheric and mesospheric sounding rocket experiments, instrumentation, and data analysis, and wave-particle interactions in the auroral ionosphere. She has a Ph.D. in space plasma physics from the University of New Hampshire. She most recently completed service on the NRC heliophysics decadal survey’s Panel on Atmosphere-Ionosphere-Magnetosphere Interactions, and also served on the Committee on Heliophysics Performance Assessment, the Committee on Solar and Space Physics, and the Committee on Plasma 2010: An Assessment of and Outlook for Plasma and Fusion Science.
KONSTANTINOS (DENNIS) PAPADOPOULOS is professor in the Departments of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has worked for over 40 years in the areas of basic plasma physics, thermonuclear fusion, space plasma physics and laser solid state plasma interactions. Dr. Papadopoulos has published over 280 papers in refereed journals, presented over 120 invited papers in international meetings, edited two books and is the recipient of six patents. He was selected as principal investigator in several NASA missions, including the Tethered Space Science Missions (TTS-1 and 2), the Global Geospace Science (GGS) Mission and the CRESS Mission and has directed numerous projects under NSF, DOE, and DOD sponsorship. He is a discoverer of spontaneously created magnetic fields in laser-produced plasmas, and his work on ionospheric heating and ELF/VLF generation using HF radio-waves interacting with the ionosphere spurred the construction of the HAARP heating facility in Alaska and to the associated applications in low-frequency communications, underground imaging and Radiation Belt control. His early work on effects of nuclear explosions in the ionosphere led to the introduction of physics based codes to magnetospheric physics. He is currently PI of the “Fundamental Physics Issues on Radiation Belts and Remediation” Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI). Dr. Papadopoulos is the recipient of numerous awards, including the E.O. Hulbert Award for Science, the Washington Academy Award for the Physical Science, and the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award. He is a corresponding member of the International Academy of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and of the Washington Academy of Sciences. In addition to his scientific work he has chaired and served on many NASA, NSF, DOE, DOD, Carnegie Foundation and Eisenhower Institute panels and science boards, including the NASA Space and Earth Science Advisory Committee (SESAC). He received his B.S. in physics from the University of Athens, his M.S. in nuclear engineering from MIT, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Maryland. Dr. Papadopoulos previously served on the NRC’s Committee on Solar and Space Physics.
Staff
ARTHUR A. CHARO, Study Director, has worked since 1995 as a senior program officer with the Space Studies Board. He is the staff officer for the Board’s Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space and Committee on Solar and Space Physics, and he has directed studies that have resulted in some 33 reports, notably the first NRC “decadal survey” in solar and space physics (2002) and Earth science and applications from space (2007). Recently, he served as the study director for the second NRC decadal survey in solar and space physics, a midterm assessment of the Earth science decadal survey, and an assessment of impediments to interagency collaboration on space and Earth science missions. Dr. Charo received his Ph.D. in experimental atomic and molecular physics in 1981 from Duke University and was a post-doctoral fellow in Chemical Physics at Harvard University from 1982-1985 where he worked on developing techniques to enable far-infrared laser spectroscopy of weakly bound complexes formed in a
molecular beam. He then pursued his interests in national security and arms control as a Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Science and International Affairs. From 1988 to 1995, he worked as a senior analyst and study director in the International Security and Space Program in the U.S. Congress’s Office of Technology Assessment. In addition to contributing to NRC reports, he is the author of research papers in the field of molecular spectroscopy; reports on arms control and space policy; and the monograph, Continental Air Defense: A Neglected Dimension of Strategic Defense (University Press of America, 1990). Dr. Charo is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in International Security (1985-1987) and a Harvard-Sloan Foundation Fellowship (1987-1988). He was a 1988-1989 AAAS Congressional Science Fellow, sponsored by the American Institute of Physics.
DON MONROE, Consultant, is a freelance writer covering physics, biology, and technology. Since receiving a master’s degree from New York University’s Science and Environmental Reporting Program in 2003, he has written for Science, New Scientist, Technology Review, Scientific American, Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery, and the American Physical Society’s “Physics” website, among other publications. Prior to that, he was active researcher in condensed-matter physics and semiconductor devices, most recently as a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, at Bell Labs and related institutions, after getting his Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 1985. In 2002, he served on the committee that investigated alleged fraud in organic materials research at Bell Labs. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, and a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
