NASA Postdoctoral Program - Heliophysics Science: Ionospheric Modeling (International Reference Ionosphere)

The NASA Postdoctoral Program 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 statistical analysis of long data records to establish the regular and irregular variation patterns of ionospheric parameters (electron and ion densities and temperatures) and their representation with appropriate mathematical functions. The primary goal is to improve the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI), which is the international standard for ionospheric parameters. The research includes studies related to the variation of ionospheric densities and temperatures with the 11-year solar cycle using in situ data from several ionospheric satellite missions available in the National Space Science Data Center archive. Other projects include the study of ionospheric storm effects and their representation in IRI, with special interest in positive storm effects that are not yet included in IRI.