[SPA] SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER, Volume XXVIII, Issue 29

[Newsletter Editor]

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER
Volume XXVIII, Issue 29
May.11,2021

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Table of Contents

1. Stanislav Sazykin (1972-2021)

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


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Stanislav Sazykin (1972-2021)

From: Richard Wolf, Frank Toffoletto, Bela Fejer, Tom Hill, Bob Spiro, Jian Yang

Stan Sazykin died suddenly and unexpectedly on May 3 at the age of 49. The cause of his death has not yet been determined.

After completing B.S. and M.S. degrees from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, he came to the United States as an exchange student as part of the USSR-USA Bush-Gorbachev Exchange Program in 1993. He earned additional degrees (B.S. and Ph.D.) from Utah State University under the supervision of Bela Fejer. He came to Rice in 2000 as a postdoc, rising through the ranks to Associate Research Professor. He was a distinguished computational physicist and a highly respected member of the space plasma physics community. He was also one of the smartest people any of us have ever encountered, with a rigorous and penetrating mind. 

As a graduate student, Stan reprogrammed a significant portion of the Rice Convection Model (RCM) of the Earth's inner magnetosphere. At Rice, Stan led the continued development and use of the code, updating its numerics and extending its usefulness by participating in multiple code-coupling projects.  Stan was always the person that people went to with questions about the RCM and its use. 

Much of Stan's research dealt with electric fields in the middle- and low-latitude ionosphere. In extreme circumstances, magnetospheric electric fields can penetrate all the way to the equator and alter the structure of the ionosphere. In less extreme conditions, localized magnetospherically driven regions of enhanced westward ionospheric drifts develop just equatorward of the auroral zone. Stan's work with the RCM substantially affected research on all of those topics, often through use of coupled ionosphere-magnetosphere models. Using a version of the RCM, he also made important contributions to our understanding of the magnetosphere of Saturn.

Stan was an active member of the scientific community, convening sessions at meetings and focus groups. He was a past member of the Steering Committee of the Geospace
Environment Modeling Program (GEM) and the Rice University Faculty Senate. 

Stan will be sorely missed by his wife Ying and his three young sons Andrew, Logan, and Victor, as well as his colleagues at Rice and many members of the magnetospheric and ionospheric scientific communities.  Since the family was dependent on Stan’s income, Rice's Physics and Astronomy Department has established a gofundme account: https://gofund.me/06094fbf 


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