Formed in 1954, the Institute for Scientific Research (ISR) is the largest sponsored research center at Boston College. Our highly skilled team of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and research associates uses its expertise for theoretical and experimental studies that include space physics, space chemistry, solar-terrestrial research, space weather, and astrophysical studies. Our current projects include heavenly explorations—for example, observing the celestial sky to interpret the changes in infrared emissions in space—and earthbound pursuits, such as defining the effects of solar storms on space-based communication and navigation systems. The ISR is currently the host site for the Secretariat Office of SCOSTEP, the Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics.


ISR at Space Physics Workshops - June 2024
June 2024 saw BC/ISR scientists attending several workshops on space physics research. D. Webb is team lead for coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on the NASA PUNCH mission (Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere), due to launch this coming spring. He attended the PUNCH 5 team workshop in Boulder, CO in June, working on a pre-launch paper on CMEs for the journal “Solar Physics”. R. Pradipta and K. Groves participated in the 2024 CEDAR workshop in San Diego. CEDAR (Coupling, Energetics, and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions) is an NSF program to investigate the space-atmosphere interaction region, including ionosphere-thermosphere predictability. K. Kraemer attended the 2024 ISWI workshop in Germany, presenting an overview of the SPARTA program, the NASA Space Weather Center of Excellence led by BC/ISR’s K. Groves (Space Weather Research and Technology Applications).

ISR at URSI AT-RASC 2024
Just after the biggest geo-effective storms of the current solar cycle hit the Earth on May 10 (aka, the Mother’s Day storm), BC/ISR scientists K. Groves, A. Hoskinson, D. Paznukhov, & C. Rino presented their ionospheric research at the 2024 URSI Atlantic Radio Science Conference. Rino, Paznukhov, & Groves (left to right in the photo) traveled to Spain for the conference, while Hoskinson presented remotely. Their research provides insights on how such storms affect the ionosphere and how that can disturb satellite communications and navigation systems. Groves is the current chair of URSI Commission G, Ionospheric Radio and Propagation and supported board meetings and tutorials for the conference.
Photos: left panel shows Rino, Paznukhov, & Groves (left to right); right panel shows Groves, Rino, & Paznukhov presenting their work (top to bottom)
Show More
ISR Activities in April 2024
April 2024 saw members of BC/ISR traveling across the country to catch the total solar eclipse, including Vermont, New York, and Ohio. Closer to home, we provided eclipse glasses & answered questions from BC students and staff in the BC Law parking lot and on main campus where it reached ~93%. ISR’s Newton-based ionospheric monitoring equipment detected signal changes in the data due to the eclipse that are currently being analyzed by D. Paznukhov. Also in April, ISR postdoc Teddy Surco Espejo (top left) went to Manila, Philippines for the UN/Philippines Workshop on the Applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), where he gave a talk on his research on using ROTI to estimate ionospheric scintillation, co-authored by IRS’s Charles Carrano & Keith Groves. Scintillation can cause errors in GPS signals, for example, and compromise the accuracy of positions and timing. Associate Director Keith Groves attended the 2024 Space Weather Workshop in Boulder, Colorado, presenting an overview of SPARTA, BC/ISR’s new NASA Space Weather Center of Excellence, which is also focusing on improving scintillation predictions.
Image credits: top-left & center: T. Surco Espejo; lower-right: SWW 2024; ionospheric data: D. Paznukhov
Show More
The USNC-URSI 50th Anniversary Meeting
BC/ISR researchers took part in the 2024 National Radio Science Meeting in Boulder, helping to celebrate the 50th anniversary with the US National Committee for URSI, the International Union of Radio Science. Keith Groves chaired the special session “Beacon Satellite Science and Applications: In Memory of Patricia Doherty” – the late ISR Director. Several ISR scientists gave talks at the session, including Groves, Charlie Carrano, Ted Beach, Teddy Surco Espejo, and Rezy Pradipta. Chuck Rino chaired the “Ionospheric Radio and Propagation” session and presented a talk. Matt Proctor, Chris Bridgwood, and Dima Paznukhov were co-authors for a number of the talks, and Groves participated in the US Commission G Business Meeting as the Chair of the international commission. While in Boulder, they took the opportunity to visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
Pictured from left to right: Dahl (SWPC), Surco Espejo, Carrano, Beach, Pradipta, and Groves. Photo courtesy of Groves.
Show More
Winter Meetings in the Space Sciences
This winter, ISR researchers have shared their research results at conferences across the country. At the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco, December 2023, Keith Groves, Dima Paznukhov, Rezy Pradipta, and Samuel Schonfeld each presented posters on their ionospheric and solar physics investigations. Other ISR researchers were also co-authors on talks and posters, including Ted Beach, Charlie Carrano, Matt Proctor, and John Retterer. In January, Kathleen Kraemer traveled to the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, where she presented a poster on infrared spectral databases, co-authored by BC undergrad Holly Branco along with summer students Elianna Cohen (GT) and Samatha Greene (ERAU).
Pictured above (from left to right): Cesar Valladares (former ISR scientist), Chuck Rino, Dima Paznukhov, Rezy Pradipta (at AGU) and Kathleen Kraemer (at AAS). Photos courtesy Groves & Kraemer.

Building Global Capacity with BC/ISR Science
This fall, ISR scientists gave lectures and invited talks at short schools and workshops in India and Kenya. K. Groves and R. Pradipta went to the Eastern Africa Capacity Building Workshop on Space Weather and Low-latitude Ionosphere at the Malindi Space Center, Kenya, in early October. K. Groves, who was also one of the Workshop Directors, lectured on ionospheric irregularities and their characteristics. R. Pradipta gave hands-on demonstrations of measurements using low-cost receivers developed at ISR. Pradipta was also an invited speaker at the 3rd International Workshop on Equatorial Plasma Bubbles (EPB-3) at the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG) in Navi Mumbai, India in September. He discussed the hazards of equatorial plasma bubbles and improving public awareness of them.
Photo credits K. Groves & R. Pradipta. Top row (left+center): a Kenyan safari over the weekend; right: at the EPB-3 from left to (right) Pradipta, Gopi Seemala, Tam Dao, & Prayitno Abadi. Bottom row (left) group photo (right) morning jogging group

SPARTA: BC/ISR Selected for 5-Year Space Weather Center of Excellence by NASA
We are excited to announce that BC's Institute for Scientific Research (ISR) has been selected by NASA to host a new Space Weather Center of Excellence (SWxC). The new SWxC, “SPARTA” (Space Weather Research and Technology Applications), will be measuring and forecasting ionospheric disturbances, especially scintillation events, and their impacts on communications, navigation, and timing systems such as GPS, in part using machine learning techniques. A major goal of the SWxC is to improve global forecasts of scintillation in order to provide better alerts and prevent disruptions to communication and navigation applications. Led by the PI Keith Groves, the SPARTA team includes members at institutes across the country and around the globe, with experts from academia, government, and industry. For additional details, please see the BC News article.

XXXVth URSI GASS in Sapporo, Japan
Ionospheric scientists K. Groves, T. Beach, and S. Radicella of BC’s ISR traveled over 6,000 miles to Sapporo, Japan to the 35th General Assembly & Scientific Symposium (GASS) of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), Aug. 19-26, 2023 to present their research. Groves described efforts to forecast “spread F”, an irregularity in the ionosphere that can interfere with radio communications that he and BC/ISR co-authors J. Retterer, C. Carrano, and C. Bridgwood are investigating. Beach discussed monitoring ionospheric “scintillation”, radio wave fluctuations that stem from ionospheric irregularities like spread F, evaluating commercial GNSS receivers along with BC/ISR’s Groves, Bridgwood, M. Proctor, and D. Paznukhov. S. Radicella gave an invited talk on promoting radio science in developing countries in partnership with the late P. Doherty, BC/ISR’s former director. Groves also participated in the USRI Commission G committee meeting, where he was serving as Vice Chair. Congrats are due as he is now the newly elected Chair through 2026! They also ran into E. Yizengaw, a former BC/ISR scientist who currently works at Aerospace Corp. Pictured in the photo from left to right: Yizengaw, Groves, Radicella, and Beach (photo courtesy K. Groves).

Summer Conferences for ISR Researchers
The summer of 2023 has seen several BC/ISR scientists travel across the country and around the world to present their research. In June, Kathleen Kraemer gave an invited review talk on stellar evolution with SOFIA observations at the 242nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Albuquerque, NM, Teddy Espejo Surco presented his research on ionospheric phase scintillation at the annual workshop for Coupling, Energetics and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions (CEDAR) in San Diego, CA, and Keith Groves presented work on low-cost instruments for space weather monitoring at the UN Workshop on the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI) in Vienna, Austria. July found Dave Webb attending the science meeting for the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission in Boulder, CO, while Groves was in Berlin, Germany for the General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) and for the Bureau meeting of the Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP).