NASA Postdoctoral Program - Heliophysics Science: Electrodynamic Processes and Waves in the Ionosphere and Magnetosphere

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 investigating the electrodynamics of the ionosphere and magnetosphere through electric and magnetic field experiments on rockets and satellites that use in situ probes with high-quantitative accuracies. The research examines dc and wave electric field measurements gathered on satellites and sounding rockets in the ionosphere and magnetosphere, which are critical to understanding fundamental physical phenomena in space. When combined with observations of magnetic fields, current densities, plasma number densities and temperatures, energetic particles, and neutral dynamics, vector observations of DC/AC electric fields provide essential tools for space physics exploration and unprecedented local in situ measurements of key ionospheric and magnetospheric processes. These observations provide necessary data to further our understanding of the role of fundamental processes in space, including the interactive coupling between the magnetosphere, the ionosphere, and the neutral atmosphere that is inherent to the space environments of the earth and other planets.