ISR Photo Gallery

Scientists from BC's ISR joined thousands of other space- and geo-physicists at last week's 100th meeting of the American Geophysics Union (AGU), showing their work in a set of talks and posters.

BC Senior Cole Tamburri (left) and one of his co-authors Larisa Goncharenko (MIT/Haystack Observatory) after his talk on modeling total electron content. Not pictured: William Rideout & Anthea Coster, MIT/Haystack Observatory. The slides are available here.

Chuck Rino (left, BC/ISR) and Charlie Carrano (right, BC/ISR) with their poster on equatorial plasma bubbles.

Recent PhD Dev Joshi (BC/ISR) presented results  on ionospheric irregularities, work which he did with Keith Groves (BC/ISR), John Retterer (BC/ISR), Patrick Roddy (AFRL), and Chaosong Huang (AFRL).

Congrats to Andrew Akala of U. Lagos for receiving the the Africa Award for Research Excellence in Space Science.

Andrew Akala receives his award.

BC/ISR space scientists Charlie Carrano, Keith Groves, and Bill McNeil, with their colleague E. Robert Kursinski of PlanetiQ, are simulating ionospheric scintillation in order to better understand its effects on space weather forecasting. Their poster is available here.

ISR's Keith Groves and his team are investigating the impact of magnetic storms on GPS and similar navigation systems.

Solar physicists Ian Hewins (BC/ISR, NCAR/HAO), Dave Webb (BC/ISR), Sarah Gibson (NCAR/HAO), Robert McFadden (BC/ISR, NCAR/HAO), and Barbara Emery (BC/ISR, NCAR/HAO) are using the historic solar maps from the McIntosh archive to investigate solar magnetic features across multiple solar cycles. Their poster is available here.

BC/ISR researchers Rezy Pradipta and Pat Doherty are studying equatorial plasma bubbles ans spread-F. Their poster can be found at at the ESSOAr repository, doi: 10.1002/essoar.10501212.1

Chuck Rino (BC/ISR), along with co-authors Tatsuhiro Yokoyama (Kyoto U.) and Charlie Carrano (BC/ISR) presented work on equatorial plasma bubbles (EPB). Their poster can be downloaded here

Pat Doherty, Director of BC's Institute for Scientific Research, visits the South African National Space Agency. Her hosts were John Bosco Habarulema (far left) and Zama Katamzi-Joseph (far right). Also visiting SANSA was Sharafat Gadimova (2nd from right) from the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs.

While at SANSA, Pat Doherty meets with Lee-Ann McKinnell, Managing Director of the Space Weather Regional Warning Centre.

As part of her visit, Pat presented a talk to the public on solar storms and their effects on technology such as power grids and communication systems.

Pat and Sharafat had time to visit beautiful Walker's Bay before heading to the  64^th Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP).

Another view of Walker's Bay near Hermanus, South Africa.

The Workshop on Ionospheric Forecasting for GNSS Operations in Developing Countries: Findings and Challenges took place in Trieste, Italy 27-31 May, 2019. The workshop was co-sponsored by BC's ISR and organized by ISR Director Pat Doherty and ICTP's Sandro Radicelli and Bruno Nava.

ISR's Keith Groves delivers a lecture on Ionospheric Irregularities and Scintillation. He also chaired the science session on Thursday afternoon.

The class listens intently to the lecture by ISR Senior Physicist and Associate Director Keith Groves

Participation by women in the space sciences continues to increase.

ISR Director Pat Doherty with Aderoke Akerele of Nigeria at the GNSS 2019 workshop

ISR Director Pat Doherty with Cyntia Ange Umuhre of Rwanda at the GNSS 2019 workshop

ISR Director Pat Doherty with Patrick Sibanda of Zambia at the GNSS 2019 workshop

Attendees show off their new BC baseball caps at the end of the workshop.

BC/ISR's Shaun Ard, John Williamson, and Tom Miller (left to right) are part of the Plasma Chemistry Lab at AFRL in Albuquerque, NM. The group is extremely prolific, typically publishing 10-15 research papers in referred journals each year.

The Plasma Chemistry Laboratory receives the 2019-2021 AFOSR STAR Team Award, recognizing the team's "Excellence in Basic Research in Plasma Chemistry for Air Force Systems".  Pictured at the award ceremony on Sep. 24, 2019, from left to right: Thomas M. Miller (BC/ISR), Col. Eric J. Felt (Director of the Space Vehicles Directorate of AFRL), Nicholas S. Shuman (AFRL), Shaun G. Ard (BC/ISR), John S. Williamson (BC/ISR), Brendan C. Sweeny (NRC postdoc), and Albert A. Viggiano (AFRL). Not present: David M. McDonald (NRC postdoc).

The plaque for the 2019-2021 AFOSR STAR Team Award.

The High Temperature Flowing-Afterglow Langmuir Probe (HT-FALP) operates between 100 and 1800 K, reaching temperatures higher than any other probe in operation.

The HT-FALP at 1600 K. The lab studies fundamental chemical interactions involving charged species, which greatly influence atmospheric plasmas such as the ionosphere and impact RF communications.

Banners for the HT-FALP and FALP equipment in the lab.

Tom Miller participates in "SuperSTEM Saturday" in February 2019, attended by hundreds of students and their families.

Researchers at Boston College's ISR measured the temperature dependence of the MnO⁺ + H₂/D₂ reactions between 150 and 600 K using a Selected-Ion Flow Tube (SIFT) apparatus. Details can be found in their article in the International Journal of Mass Spectrometry at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijms.2018.10.011

Tom Miller (behind, standing) and John Williamson (in front) have over 30 years of experience in the Plasma Chemistry Lab and its predecessors.

A recent result on gold as a catalytic agent for converting methane to ethene was selected as a "HOT" article by the editors of the journal Catalysis Science & Technology available at https://doi.org/10.1039/C9CY00523D