[SPA] SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER, Volume XXV, Issue 33

[Newsletter Editor]

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER
Volume XXV, Issue 33
May.28,2018

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Table of Contents

1. 2018 Heliophysics TechDemo Mission of Opportunity Technology Fair/Industry Day

2. SCOSTEP NSP Call for Feedback

3. MEETING: HAO Workshop “Model Coupling and Data Driven Simulations of Solar Eruptions”; Mesa Lab of NCAR, Boulder, August 13–16, 2018: Meeting Registration Deadline June 1 2018

4. JOB OPENING: Postdoctoral Fellow Position in Space Plasma Physics at West Virginia University

5. JOB OPENING: Positions Available within the AIDA Network

6. JOB OPENING: 2 Postdoctoral and 2 PhD Student Positions in Space Physics Group at the Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Finland

7. RHESSI Nuggets in May 2018

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Announcement Submission Website: http://goo.gl/forms/qjcm4dDr4g


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2018 Heliophysics TechDemo Mission of Opportunity Technology Fair/Industry Day

From: Roshanak Hakimzadeh (hq-techdemo at mail.nasa.gov)

NASA’s Heliophysics Division invites you to participate in a NASA Technology Fair/Industry Day in preparation for the 2018 Heliophysics Technology Demonstration Mission of Opportunity (MO) Solicitation.

Overview
A May 31, 2018 virtual meeting has been scheduled for 2018 Heliophysics Technology Demonstration Mission of Opportunity proposers and technology providers, where technologies for proposal consideration will be showcased. All interested parties may attend. 

Join Webex Meeting
https://nasa.webex.com/nasa/j.php?MTID=m1ed6b63be085d5d407f82323ad62fcee
Meeting number: 990 568 337
Meeting password: Tech at May31

Join by Phone
Dial-in numbers: 1-844-467-4685 toll-free participant access
                 1-720-259-7012 participant access
Passcode: 978143

Additional information, including the agenda, may be found at https://soma.larc.nasa.gov/STP/tdmo/tdmo-technology_fair.html.

Information for Proposers
Proposers should be cognizant of the Mission of Opportunity (MO) requirement to mature systems that include new technologies to TRL 5 by PDR. For the purpose of TRL assessment, systems are defined as level 3 WBS payload developments (i.e., individual instruments) and level 3 WBS spacecraft elements (e.g., electrical power system); see Figure 3-7 of NASA/SP-2010-3404, NASA WBS Handbook, which can be found in the 2018 Heliophysics TechDemo Program Library at https://soma.larc.nasa.gov/stp/tdmo/tdmo-library.html.

Information for Technology Providers
There are a limited number of 30-minute slots available for technology provider presentations. If you are interested in presenting your technology at the meeting, download the Presentation Quad Chart template at https://soma.larc.nasa.gov/STP/tdmo/ppt_files/2018_Industry_Day_Technology_template_rev_5.pptx, complete it to the extent possible, and email it to the Heliophysics TechDemo MO leadership team at hq-techdemo at mail.nasa.gov. Backup charts are permitted. The Heliophysics TechDemo MO leadership team will contact you regarding the applicability of your technology and presentation options. Note that all presentation materials will be made publicly available. 


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SCOSTEP NSP Call for Feedback

From: Ioannis A. Daglis (iadaglis at phys.uoa.gr)

The SCOSTEP Bureau has established a committee to coordinate the design of SCOSTEP’s Next Scientific Program (NSP), which will cover the period from 2019 to 2022.  This committee has prepared a document describing the NSP, which is accessible at: https://1drv.ms/f/s!Akpx0yeihiGHoRrANb2ZkIa_f-Gm

The central scientific topic of the NSP is the predictability of the Sun-Earth system at various time scales.

The NSP committee invites feedback from the scientific community, in the form of white papers, or short comments, or even verbally to one or more of the committee members, which are listed with their email addresses in the NSP document mentioned above. Please send your feedback until July 31, 2018!

To encourage an open and transparent discussion, all white papers will be made publicly viewable at: https://1drv.ms/f/s!Akpx0yeihiGHoRtUB6m2wPKVk8cc

In addition, there will be public opportunities to provide input at discussion sessions to be held at 
- the Workshop “Solar Influences on the Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Atmosphere” in Primorsko (Bulgaria) on 4-8 June
- the SCOSTEP 14th Quadrennial Solar-Terrestrial Physics Symposium in Toronto (Canada) on 9-13 July
- the 42nd COSPAR General Assembly in Pasadena, California (USA) on 14-22 July

The NSP committee will use the feedback received to produce a second draft and issue another call for feedback in autumn. The goal of the committee is to have a final description of the NSP by the end of February 2019.


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MEETING: HAO Workshop “Model Coupling and Data Driven Simulations of Solar Eruptions”; Mesa Lab of NCAR, Boulder, August 13–16, 2018: Meeting Registration Deadline June 1 2018

From: Matthias Rempel (rempel at ucar.edu)

Registration at www2.hao.ucar.edu/Workshop/ModelCoupling-2018

HAO is hosting a workshop focusing on model coupling and data driven numerical simulations with the goal to improve the realism of modeling active region flux emergence and work towards simulating realistic solar eruptive events. Significant progress has been made in recent years in both of these areas. Near surface layer radiation MHD simulations of active region formation driven by lower boundary condition of emerging flux from a solar convective dynamo simulation are able to model sunspot and active region formation with realistic properties of the observed solar active regions. Methods of using observed time sequences of vector magnetograms to drive simulations of realistic solar eruptive events in the corona are being explored and developed.  This workshop will bring together modelers and observers working in these areas to review recent results, discuss methodologies and future directions.  

Important upcoming deadlines:
Meeting Registration (with title of talk) Deadline: Friday, June 1, 2018

Workshop SOC:
Matthias Rempel (HAO/NCAR) 
Yuhong Fan (HAO/NCAR) 
Chaowei Jiang (Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China) 
Maria Kazachenko (SSL/UC Berkeley, CU/NSO) 
Mark Cheung (LMSAL) 
Mark Linton (NRL) 
Tibor Török (PSI)


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JOB OPENING: Postdoctoral Fellow Position in Space Plasma Physics at West Virginia University

From: Weichao Tu (wetu at mail.wvu.edu)

The West Virginia University Research Corporation (WVURC) seeks to hire a Postdoctoral Fellow –Space Plasma Physics in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at West Virginia University. This position supports the research in inner magnetospheric physics by Prof. Tu’s group, with a particular emphasis on studying and modeling the dynamics of the Van Allen radiation belts. Incumbent will have the opportunity to work on research projects involving data analysis, theory development, and numerical modeling.

Requirements: (1) A PhD in physics, space physics, plasma physics, or a related discipline; (2) previous research experience in space plasma physics; (3) expertise in scientific programming, preferably in C and/or FORTRAN. Preference will be given to applicants who possess previous research experience in inner magnetospheric physics and particle simulations (for example, radiation belts, wave-particle interactions).

Competitive salary and benefits package offered. For a complete job description and to apply for this position, please visit https://wvu.taleo.net/careersection/wvu_research/jobdetail.ftl?job=08827&tz=GMT-04%3A00 and click on the “Apply Online” link. 

Qualified applicants should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, and contact information for three references as part of the application process. For questions or additional information, contact Prof. Weichao Tu at wetu at mail.wvu.edu.  Please refer to http://tuweichao.wixsite.com/home and physics.wvu.edu for additional information about the research in our group and other plasma physics research in the department. Review of applications will begin June 11, 2018 and continue until the position is filled. Start date in Fall 2018 is desirable.

WVURC is an AA/EOE/Minorities/Females/Vet/Disability/E-verify compliant employer.


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JOB OPENING: Positions Available within the AIDA Network

From: Giovanni Lapenta (giovanni.lapenta at kuleuven.be)

PhD and PostDoc Fellowships in Space Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence within the H2020 project AIDA (aida-space.eu)

The AIDA H2020 Consortium funded by the European Commission is looking to cover several positions at the doctoral and postdoctoral level. The AIDA consortium is composed by KU Leuven in Belgium; CWI in The Netherlands; University of Calabria, University of Pisa and CINECA in Italy; CNRS in France; IRIDA in Greece and by Space Consulting in USA.
The activities of AIDA will focus on the development of modelling and data analysis from multiple space missions of processes in the solar corona (flares, CMEs), in the solar wind and in the Earth’s magnetosphere. The work will be primarily in the development of new methods for data analysis and simulation, focusing especially on machine learning and artificial intelligence but covering also more traditional data analysis methods. Knowledge of the python programming language is critical in most tasks. The work will be based on the extensive previous expertise in the field of high performance computing, space science and its application to space weather within the consortium.
The selected candidates will have expertise in at least one of the following areas:

1. Machine Learning, Deep Neural Networks, Bayesian Methods
2. Solar, Magnetospheric and Solar wind data analysis
3. Expertise on computer programming with Python, C, C++ or Fortran.
4. Plasma physics, astrophysics or space physics,
5. Numerical methods for fluid dynamics, MHD, and kinetic plasma physics (particle in cell methods, Vlasov Eulerian methods).

The researchers will have access to large parallel computer facilities and to a stimulating research environment within the AIDA consortium. The researchers will be employed by specific partners of AIDA, but collaborations with other centers are encouraged. An updated list of open positions can be found on www.aida-space.eu. Currently we have the following positions open:

*    1 PhD student position at KULeuven, Belgium:  4 years are the expected duration of a PhD at KULeuven: Details and Application Link: https://www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jobsite/jobs/54648904
*    1 PostDoc position at KULeuven, Belgium:  the position will be for up to 3 years. Details and Application Link: https://www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jobsite/jobs/54649709
*    1 Postdoc position at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, up to 3 years. Details and Application Link: https://tinyurl.com/aida-CWI-job
*    1 Postdoc position at the Department of Physics (UNIPI), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy up to 2 years. Details and Application Link: (see contact below). Required specializations: points 4, 5, 3.
*    2 Postdoc positions at the Department of Physics (UNICAL), University of Calabria, Rende (CS), Italy, of the duration of two years each. Details and Application Link: (see contact below)
*    2 PostDoc positions at the Laboratory of Plasma Physics (CNRS), Paris, France:  the duration of each position will be 1 year. Details and Application Link: (see contact below)

Informal enquiries are welcome and should be made directly to partner hiring.  Contact persons are:

*    KULeuven: Prof. Giovanni Lapenta (tel: +32 16 327965, email: coordinator.aida at kuleuven.be).
*    CWI: Dr. Enrico Camporeale (tel: +31 20 592 4240, email: e.camporeale at cwi.nl)
*    UNIPI: Prof. Francesco Califano (tel: +39 050 2214 862, francesco.califano at unipi.it)
*    UNICAL: Dr. Sergio Servidio (tel: +39 0984 496138, sergio.servidio at fis.unical.it), Dr. Francesco Valentini (tel: +39 0984 496129, francesco.valentini at unical.it 
*    CNRS: Dr. Alessandro Retinò (tel: +33 1 69335929, alessandro.retino at lpp.polytechnique.fr), Dr. Fouad Sahraoui (tel: +33 1 69335922, fouad.sahraoui at lpp.polytechnique.fr)

The review of the applications will begin on August 1, for full consideration it is advisable to send the applications before that date. The preferred start date for employment is September or October but it can be adjusted based on the candidate’s needs.

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JOB OPENING: 2 Postdoctoral and 2 PhD Student Positions in Space Physics Group at the Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Finland

From: Minna Palmroth, Emilia Kilpua (minna.palmroth at helsinki.fi)

The Space Physics Group at the Department of Physics is a leading European space physics group specialised both in observations and modelling of space plasmas. For example, we develop the novel global hybrid-Vlasov simulation Vlasiator and have a strong focus on solar eruptions. Our current research areas include magnetospheric dynamics as driven by solar wind, as well as reconnection, shocks and particle acceleration.

We are now opening two postdoctoral positions, and two doctoral student positions. The specifics of the positions are given below.

- Postdoctoral researcher with a strong plasma physics modelling background, having expertise in algorithm development. Modelling expertise in the following areas are considered an advantage: Kinetic plasma physics, Landau fluid theory, wave-particle interactions.

- Postdoctoral researcher with strong space plasma observational background, having expertise in magnetospheric dynamics. Observational expertise in the following areas are considered an advantage: Particle precipitation, radiation belt physics, wave-particle interactions.

- The doctoral students are regarded as strong candidates when they have a solid expertise in space plasma physics either in the solar or in the magnetospheric context.

Other useful skills for all applicants include: Python, C/C++, supercomputer environments, experimental data analysis techniques. Previous knowledge of cubesat projects is also considered an advantage.

We offer a position in a dynamic and international research group, with a possibility to network and to develop as a researcher. The positions are available immediately. The positions are open until they are filled.

For more information, please visit:
http://blogs.helsinki.fi/spacephysics/
https://www.helsinki.fi/sustainable-space

For specifics about the position, contact Professor Minna Palmroth (minna.palmroth ‘at’ helsinki.fi) and Associate Professor Emilia Kilpua (emilia.kilpua ‘at’ helsinki.fi). Interested candidates should send their informal application, CV, list of publications, and a maximum of three names to act as references to the above addresses.


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RHESSI Nuggets in May 2018

From: Hugh Hudson (hhudson at ssl.berkeley.edu)

No. 324, “Understanding HMI pseudocontinuum in white-light flares”, by Michal Svanda et al. The HMI pseudocontinuum (the Ic product) is ill-calibrated in regions with strong fields, ie for white-light flares.

No. 323, “To beam or not to beam - that is (still) the question”, by Paulo Simoes and Hugh Hudson. Descriptions of the lower solar atmosphere of flares ca. Cycle 21 sound surprisingly current.

No. 322, “Observation of Cosmic-Ray Spallation Events from SoHO,” by Serge Koutchmy and Ehsan Tavabi. LASCO’s images capture high-energy nuclear interactions from cosmic-ray hits.

See http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/RHESSI_Science_Nuggets listing the current series, 2008-present, and http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/nuggets/ for the original series, 2005-2008. We publish these at roughly two-week intervals and welcome contributions, which should be related, at least loosely, to RHESSI science.


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