[SPA] SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER, Volume XXV, Issue 62

[Newsletter Editor]

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER
Volume XXV, Issue 62
Oct.04,2018

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Table of Contents

1. The Passing of Dr. Marcos Machado

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


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The Passing of Dr. Marcos Machado

From: ALAGE Information Secretary (alage.information at gmail.com)

Dear friends and colleagues, 

Marcos Machado passed away on September 20th 2018 after a serious illness.

Marcos was a great and well respected space scientist, and a leader in the space physics community.

Marcos E. Machado graduated in Astronomy at Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1971. He continued his education at the University of Colorado, Boulder, until 1974, and held short-term positions as assistant researcher at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics and Sacramento Peak Observatory. From 1977 until 1979, he was research fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Several of his most and still cited articles on spectral analysis and modelling of the solar atmosphere belong to this period.

In the 1980s he became engaged with a group of scientists at Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA, who were involved in several of the instruments flying onboard the Solar Maximum Mission. In particular, because of his previous collaboration with researchers at Utrecht University and a two-year working visit in France and The Netherlands (1981 – 1982), he became mainly involved in the analysis and modelling of the soft and hard X-ray emission of solar flares using the Hard X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (HXIS) observations. His articles from the 1980s and early 1990s presented key and, probably, still valid results on flare energy deposition and transfer along coronal structures.

>From 1983 to 1985 he returned with his family to Argentina to work at the Comisión Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales (CNIE). From 1985 and until 1993, with a few years back in Argentina, he became research fellow at the Marshall Space Flight Center and later Professor at the University of Alabama, Huntsville.

It was during that time that CNIE was replaced by the Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), created in 1991. In 1993 Marcos returned to Argentina to work at CONAE and in 1997 he became its Scientific Director. This new commission signed the first agreement with NASA, in which Marcos played a key role, to launch the first Argentine satellite that included national scientific payloads. Since then and until his death Marcos worked at CONAE participating, among other tasks, in the design and update of the Argentine Space Program.

Marcos was also member of the International Academy of Astronautics, member of the Editorial Board of Solar Physics from 1982 to 1997, and received in 2006 the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) Vikram Sarabhai Medal, awarded through COSPAR selection, for outstanding contributions to space research in developing countries.

He was also an active supporter of the LatinAmerican space physics community. He was one of the founding members of the LatinAmerican Association of Space Geophysics (ALAGE), and lately, as former president he worked for the advancement of the international recognition of the Association. He encouraged young scientists to engage actively in space science. He was always a strong supporter of the collaboration between LatinAmerican countries and was regarded as a visionary leader by anyone who had the chance to work with him.

His leadership and commitment will be missed.

Dr. Alejandro Valdivia

Dr. Cristina Mandrini

Dr. María Graciela Molina


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