Sandra Catherine Chapman | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | University of London Imperial College London (Ph.D., D.I.C) (BSc, A.R.C.S.) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | University of Warwick |
| Thesis | Lithium releases in the near earth plasma environment. (1985) |
Sandra C. Chapman CPhysis FInstP FRAS a British astrophysicist who is Professor of Physics and Director of the Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics at the University of Warwick. Her research considers nonlinear physics and planetary magnetospheres.
Chapman studied physics at Imperial College London, where she was awarded an Exhibition Scholarship. [1] She was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy during her undergraduate degree. [2] She remained at Imperial for her doctoral research, which considered the release of lithium in the near Earth plasma environment. [3]
Chapman joined the University of Warwick in 1995. In 2000 she became the first woman to become a professor of physics at the University of Warwick. [4]
Chapman studies the dynamical interactions of planetary magnetospheres. She has shown that they release energy in unpredictable intervals, and behave as multi-scale, coupled systems. Her research on magnetic storms informed the strategy of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission. [5] Alongside her scientific research, Chapman is an artist, and in 2003 held a NESTA fellowship [6] to create art with the British Antarctic Survey. [7] [8] [9]
To perform her investigations, Chapman makes use of non-linear physics. [10] She has applied her understanding to the aurora, [11] to quantify the risk of extreme space weather [12] [13] and to better understand solar activity. [14] In 2017, she was awarded a Fulbright Program Fellowship to spend a year at Boston University and identify ways to protect the planet from space weather. [15]
Chapman was a 2003-2004 Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow [16] and the International Space Science Institute 2023 Johannes Geiss Fellow [17] .
In 2022, Chapman was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Chapman Medal. [18]
Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He described the class of MHD waves now known as Alfvén waves. He was originally trained as an electrical power engineer and later moved to research and teaching in the fields of plasma physics and electrical engineering. Alfvén made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the behavior of aurorae, the Van Allen radiation belts, the effect of magnetic storms on the Earth's magnetic field, the terrestrial magnetosphere, and the dynamics of plasmas in the Milky Way galaxy.
The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its headquarters are in Burlington House, on Piccadilly in London. The society has over 4,000 members, known as fellows, most of whom are professional researchers or postgraduate students. Around a quarter of Fellows live outside the UK.
Lyman Spitzer Jr. was an American theoretical physicist, astronomer and mountaineer. As a scientist, he carried out research into star formation and plasma physics and in 1946 conceived the idea of telescopes operating in outer space. Spitzer invented the stellarator plasma device and is the namesake of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. As a mountaineer, he made the first ascent of Mount Thor, with Donald C. Morton.
Eugene Newman Parker was an American solar and plasma physicist. In the 1950s he proposed the existence of the solar wind and that the magnetic field in the outer Solar System would be in the shape of a Parker spiral, predictions that were later confirmed by spacecraft measurements. In 1987, Parker proposed the existence of nanoflares, a leading candidate to explain the coronal heating problem.
The Chapman Medal is an award of the Royal Astronomical Society, given for "investigations of outstanding merit in the science of the Sun, space and planetary environments or solar-terrestrial physics". It is named after Sydney Chapman (1888–1970), a British geophysicist who worked on solar-terrestrial physics and aeronomy. The medal was first awarded in 1973, initially on a triennial basis. From 2004-2012 it was awarded biennially, and since 2012 has been annual.
Margaret Galland Kivelson is an American space physicist, planetary scientist, and distinguished professor emerita of space physics at the University of California, Los Angeles. From 2010 to the present, concurrent with her appointment at UCLA, Kivelson has been a research scientist and scholar at the University of Michigan. Her primary research interests include the magnetospheres of Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Steven Jay Schwartz is a professor of space physics at Imperial College London. He was awarded the Chapman Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2006 "in recognition of his pioneering work in solar terrestrial physics and space plasma physics". In 2009, he became the head of the Space and Atmospheric Physics Group at Imperial College London.
Anthony Raymond Bell is a British physicist. He is a professor of physics at the University of Oxford and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. He is a senior research fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.
Marina Galand is an atmospheric physicist and lecturer at Imperial College London. She is the 2018 recipient of the Holweck Prize for her "outstanding contribution to space physics by studying in a comprehensive and original manner the effects of energy sources on planetary atmospheres throughout the Solar System and beyond".
Emma Olivia Chapman is a British physicist and Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow at Imperial College London. Her research investigates the epoch of reionization. She won the 2018 Royal Society Athena Prize. In November 2020 Chapman published her first book, First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time.
Emma J. Bunce is a British space physicist and Professor of Planetary Plasma Physics at the University of Leicester. She holds a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. Her research is on the magnetospheres of Saturn and Jupiter. She is principal investigator (PI) of the MIXS instrument on BepiColombo, was deputy lead on the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer proposal, and co-investigator on the Cassini–Huygens mission.
Philippa K. Browning is a Professor of Astrophysics in the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. She specialises in the mathematical modelling of fusion plasmas.
Stanley William Herbert Cowley is a British physicist, Emeritus Professor of Solar Planetary Physics at the University of Leicester.
Sir Ian Trevelyan ChapmanFRS is a British physicist who is the chief executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).
Cathryn N. Mitchell is a Professor of Electronic & Electronic Engineering at the University of Bath. She was awarded the 2019 Institute of Physics Edward Appleton Medal and Prize.
Karen Aplin is a British atmospheric and space physicist. She is currently a professor at the University of Bristol. Aplin has made significant contributions to interdisciplinary aspects of space and terrestrial science, in particular the importance of electrical effects on planetary atmospheres. She was awarded the 2021 James Dungey Lectureship of the Royal Astronomical Society.
James Wynne Dungey (1923–2015) was a British space scientist who was pivotal in establishing the field of space weather and made significant contributions to the fundamental understanding of plasma physics.
Clare Watt is a British space scientist and is currently Professor of Space Physics at the Northumbria University. She was elected vice-president of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2022 and has served on the editorial board of Oxford University Press's RAS Techniques and Instruments journal since 2021.
Thomas Richard Marsh (1961–2022) was a highly regarded British astronomer and astrophysicist working in the field for four decades, recently specialising in the accretion and evolution of binary star systems.
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