I study plasma physics of the heliosphere, including the solar wind, planetary magnetospheres, the lunar surface, and planetary ionospheres. Topics of particular interest include: high frequency plasma waves, wave-particle interactions, solar wind dynamics, natural micro-meteoroids and human-generated debris impacts on spacecraft, lunar surface plasma physics and spacecraft charging. To enable these studies and others, I develop scientific instrumentation for spacecraft, focusing on the measurement of electric and magnetic fields as well as on signal processing techniques and hardware. Past and current instrumentation projects include the Electric Fields and Waves (EFW) instrument on the Van Allen Probes mission (studying Earth's radiation belts), the FIELDS instrument on the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS) (studying magnetic reconnection), the FIELDS instrument on the Parker Solar Probe mission (studying solar wind heating and acceleration), the RAPS instrument on the COUSIN sounding rocket payload (studying ionosphere-thermosphere coupling), the RESOLVE instrument on the DUSTER lunar lander (studying lunar surface plasma physics), the LuSEE instrument on a NASA commercial lunar lander (studying lunar surface plasma physics), the CANVAS cubesat (studying plasma wave propagation through Earth's ionosphere), the DENTS orbital debris detection instrument (studying orbital debris), and the AETHER instrument on the Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) (studying ionosphere-thermosphere coupling).
keywords
Plasma waves, Planetary Magnetospheres, Solar Wind, Spacecraft charging, Hypervelocity Dust Impacts, Space Debris, Interplanetary Dust, Lunar Surface Plasma Physics
