Space Physics at Southwest Research Institute

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Astronomy on Tap SATX A monthly discussion of the wonders of the universe, with beers in hand! Presentations from the experts, trivia, prizes, and more!

Southwest Research Institute will hold its annual Graduate Program Tour Day on November 6th from noon to 5 pm.

Tour Day will feature presentations on the exciting work being done at SwRI, tours of our state-of-the-art space flight hardware facilities, and a meet-and-greet with current graduate students!

Lunch will be provided!

ABOUT THE PROGRAM:
The joint UTSA/SwRI program offers M.S. and Ph.D degrees in Physics, focusing on Space Physics. Available research areas include: Astrophysics, Atmospheric Physics, Cometary Physics, Ionospheric Physics, Magnetospheric Phyiscs, Planetary Science, Solar & Heliospheric Physics, and Space Flight Instrumentation.

For more information, visit our website under the Tour Day tab:

SwRI/UTSA | Graduate Program | Home New Horizons made its historic flyby of Pluto to collect unprecedented data of the dwarf planet. The spacecraft is continuing on its path through the outer solar system, studying other Kuiper Belt Objects. Two of the instruments from New Horizons were built and led by SwRI.

Did you catch us during the Alamo City Comic Con this weekend? We had graduate students and space scientists at our booth- promoting our program and our upcoming events. Stay tuned, we will be posting events soon.

Our very own Alexis Bouquet making the news again! Alexis's research directly addresses if other planetary bodies in our solar system have the ability to support life.
You can see the articles he and our other graduate students have published by going to http://grad.space.swri.edu/

http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/article/UTSA-student-finds-new-source-of-hydrogen-in-11250800.php

UTSA student finds new source of hydrogen in solar system’s moons, which could support alien life A graduate student at the University of Texas at San Antonio has found that hydrogen can be produced between reactions between radioactive rock and water on spatial bodies within our solar system, potentially providing support for alien life. Physics doctoral student Alexis Bouquet, working at South...

A long overdue congratulations to Dr. Sarah Vines on the defense of her dissertation "Ion-scale characteristics and dynamics of dayside magnetopause reconnection exhausts: Effects of interplanetary magnetic field orientation." Sarah has now started a post-doc position at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland!

Congratulations to Kevin Genestreti, now Doctor Kevin Genestreti, for the successful defense of his doctoral thesis!! Kevin's thesis, entitled "Spatial characteristics of magnetotail reconnection", looked at cross-scale coupling between the very, very small-scale reconnection sites that form in our magnetosphere and the much larger dynamic properties of near-Earth plasmas. During his tenure at UTSA-SwRI, Kevin analyzed data from European Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and NASA satellite missions. He also ran theoretical simulations on supercomputer clusters and helped calibrate the MMS-HPCA plasma ion composition instruments, prior to their March 2015 launch on an Atlas V rocket. Dr. Genestreti will be continuing his work on MMS at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Europe. Best of luck!!!

Pictured, Kevin and his advisor, Dr. Stephen Fuselier, after Kevin's successful thesis defense.

Guy Grubbs, aka "That Guy", and now aka "Doctor That Guy" engages in the time-honored signing of the UTSA-SwRI PhD alumni mug, a tradition that dates all the way back to 2010. (For those that don't remember this bygone era, 2010 was when televisions were slightly thicker than they are now, when Pokemon was briefly less-than-everywhere, and 5 years after UTSA and SwRI teamed up to form a graduate program in physics and astronomy). Tradition dictates that recent graduates, in this case, Dr. Grubbs, sign and drink from the mug. The mug has no bottom, ensuring that the graduate can't put it down and accidentally forget to celebrate.

Congrats again Guy! Best of luck in your postdoc at NASA-Goddard.

Also pictured, the GREECE sounding rocket, which was launched into an active aurora over Alaska, and which Guy worked on as an engineer and scientist.

Congratulations to UTSA-SwRI's own Guy Grubbs, now Dr. Guy Grubbs, for successfully defending his doctoral thesis on 22 July!! Guy's thesis, entitled "Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling During Active Aurora", analyzed remote (ground-based images) and in situ data (rocket-based plasma measurements) to characterize the ionospheric electrons and conductance during an active aurora over Poker Flats, Alaska. Of the many one-sentence summaries that we have ascribed to our students' theses, "he helped launch a rocket into the aurora" is hands-down one of the coolest! Best of luck in your future research, Dr. Grubbs!

Slightly more than half of 2016 is now behind us and UTSA-SwRI graduate students have been busy! Students have given talks in Tokyo, London, Sweden, New Mexico, Michigan, and (of course) Texas. Others have served (and still others will very soon be serving) as executive secretaries on NASA grant proposal review panels. Congratulations are in order to Thomas Kim for winning the outstanding student paper award at the Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM) conference, to Kevin Genestreti for winning the outstanding student paper award at the Japan Geoscience Union (JpGU) conference, and to Robert Allen, whose recent article entitled "A statistical study of EMIC waves observed by Cluster: 1. Wave properties" is sitting comfortably at #1 on JGR: Space Physics' list of the most cited papers from the past 12 months.

NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter begins orbiting the gas giant tonight, 11:18 EST (10:18 CST), after 5 years in space! Go Juno!

Congratulations to UTSA-SwRI students Robert Allen, Janie de La Rosa, Kevin Genestreti, Dave Mackler, and Sarah Vines for publishing peer reviewed journal articles last semester! Also, we wish those of you in the 'submitted' section of our student publications list the best of luck!

http://grad.space.swri.edu/research/publications.html

SwRI/UTSA | Graduate Program | Publications

Congratulations to Doctor David Mackler, who recently graduated from the UTSA-SwRI program!! This winter David successfully defended his thesis, entitled "An observational study of the relationship between precipitating ions and ENAs emerging from the ion/atmosphere interaction region". He also published a manuscript, entitled "Statistical Correlation of Low Altitude ENA Emissions with Geomagnetic Activity from IMAGE/MENA Observations". The photos attached are from Dave's goodbye lunch. As is tradition, Dave signed the goblet, which contains the signatures and graduation dates of all the graduate students to come through UTSA-SwRI. Dave will be missed, but we wish him the best at his new position at NASA/Goddard!

David's paper can be accessed here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015JA021545/full

(Thanks to De Anna for sharing these pictures!)