Heliophysics Science: Advanced analysis of observational data to predict solar activity

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific opportunity focuses on understanding how the Sun operates through comprehensive analysis of observational data from space and ground-based observatories. The project aims to study solar activity phenomena from the interior to the corona using magnetograms, subsurface flows, solar oscillations, and other data. The research will enable the development of a new generation of data assimilation models to predict solar activity through state-of-the-art data analysis and modeling techniques, machine-learning approaches, and principal component analysis. The research plan includes collecting and analyzing observational data in the form of a data processing pipeline, including data from Solar Dynamics Observatory and other space missions, with possible extension to historical and ground-based observations. Advanced mathematical methods of data analysis, theoretical models, and simulations will be employed to cross-analyze diverse data sets and investigate various aspects of solar activity. This opportunity encourages collaborations of researchers from heliophysics, magnetohydrodynamics, computational physics, and data and computer sciences.