Cross-Scale Coupling and Energy Transfer in the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere System

Toshi Nishimura is a research associate professor at Boston University. He works on magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling across scales using all-sky imaging, radars, and satellite observations. Key research contributions include the substorm pre-onset auroral sequence, pulsating aurora driving by chorus waves, day-night coupling by flow channels, and localized transients throughout the system. He has received the James B. Macelwane Medal from American Geophysical Union in 2016. He has chaired multi-scale ionosphere-thermosphere coupling sessions at CEDAR workshop and AGU in 2018. Olga Verkhoglyadova is a research group supervisor at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Her expertise is in space weather, solar wind driving of the upper atmosphere, plasma waves and satellite data analysis. Key recent research contributions are on energy budget of the ionosphere-thermosphere system, plasma wave processes in the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere, atmospheric effects of solar energetic particles, ionospheric and atmospheric remote sensing. She is recipient of several NASA and JPL awards. She chaired sessions on high-latitude system dynamics and multi-scale ionosphere-thermosphere coupling at AGU and CEDAR Workshop in 2018. Yue Deng is a professor of space physics in the Department of physics at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). Dr. Deng is leading the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) project to develop next generation simulation capability in ionosphere/thermosphere coupling at multiple scales for environmental specification and prediction. Her professional experience in space physics has involved developing a new 3-dimensional non-hydrostatic ionosphere/thermosphere general circulation model (GCM) and investigating the non-hydrostatic processes in the upper atmosphere. Her research interests include global 3-D modeling of complex system, solar and geomagnetic energy input uncertainty into the upper atmosphere, gravity-acoustic wave propagation, ionosphere-thermosphere coupling in multiple scales, data analysis and planetary atmosphere. She is a recipient of a NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. She is serving as a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee of Solar and Space Physics (CSSP).