Leadership

Tom Berger

Thomas Berger

Executive Director
SWx TREC
Tom is a solar physicist by training with degrees in mechanical engineering and astrophysics from Stanford University. He previously worked at the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, where he was a co-investigator on the Japanese/US/UK Hinode mission that launched in 2006. Tom was also project scientist for the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope at the National Solar Observatory and was the director of NOAA’s Space...
Jeff Thayer

Jeff Thayer

SWx TREC Faculty Director, Professor
Aerospace Engineering Sciences • Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research (CCAR)
Jeff’s research program is rooted in applying engineering solutions to study the aerospace environment from our Earth’s surface to the geospace environment—the region of space strongly influenced by Earth’s gravitational and magnetic fields. He specializes in geophysical fluid dynamics, gas and plasma interactions, thermodynamics, and electrodynamics applied to the atmosphere and geospace. This field of research has increased over the years as our society rapidly becomes more economically and socially...
Eric Sutton

Eric Sutton

Senior Research Associate, SWx Research Lead
SWx TREC
Eric is a senior research associate at SWx TREC. Specializing in upper-atmospheric and ionospheric data analysis, theory, and modeling, Sutton has worked to improve the predictions most critical to the Space Situational Awareness Programme (SSA) and space traffic management of low-Earth orbiting assets. He is a proponent for using physics-based models to specify the state of the upper atmosphere and has tackled many technical challenges related to their implementation in...
Greg Lucas

Greg Lucas

MADTech Office Lead, SWx TREC
SWx TREC • Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)
Greg is a software engineer in the data systems group at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and is helping to build the model testbed environment for SWx TREC. He has a PhD in aerospace engineering focusing on remote sensing and global atmospheric modeling. As a postdoc, Greg investigated geomagnetically induced currents and hazards to the power grid from solar storms. He enjoys all outdoor activities, taking particular interests...
Enrico Camporeale

Enrico Camporeale

Senior Research Scientist; Director, Deep Learning Lab
SWx TREC • CIRES
Enrico is a research associate with CIRES and affiliated with the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. He graduated in space plasma physics from the Queen Mary University of London. Enrico has worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Dutch National Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI). His research activities focus on the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve the forecasting capabilities of space weather...
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Julia Putt

Project Manager, SWORD Center of Excellence
Research Services Program Management Office
Julia manages SWx TREC’s finances, working within the CU system to balance the budget and plan the financial future of the center. She prepares budgets and other documentation for grant and contract proposals and manages award finances. Julia earned her bachelor’s degree in accounting at the University of Arizona, followed by her master’s degree in business administration at the University of Colorado Denver. In her spare time, Julia enjoys exploring...

Affiliates

Renee Conway

Finance Professional
CCAR and SWx TREC
Andong Hu

Andong Hu

Research Scientist I
SWx TREC
Andong Hu is a postdoctoral associate at Swx-TREC, specializing in space weather technology. He has a Ph.D. in geospatial science from the SPACE Research Centre, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University. Andong's expertise lies in developing innovative machine learning approaches to model and predict various space weather phenomena. He has worked at the Dutch National Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) and CIRES. His research focuses on topics...
Jenny Knuth

Jenny Knuth

Product Owner, Space Weather Data Portal
SWx TREC • Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)
Jenny is a front-end developer in the data systems group at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. With a focus on usability and interaction, she brings together computers, data, and design to create software tools for scientists. She enjoys problem solving and puzzles of all kinds. Jenny has lived on the US west coast, the US east coast, in England, Norway, and France, and now finds herself happily settled...
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Sarah Melssen

Senior Finance and Operations Manager
CCAR and SWx TREC
Luis Navarro Dominguez

Luis Navarro

Research Scientist I
SWx TREC
Luis is a research associate at SWx TREC. He uses large, ground-based and spaceborne instrumentation datasets to study the effects of geomagnetically disturbed events and of the geophysical variability over the thermosphere and exosphere, and their inherent interplay with ionospheric drivers. His current projects involve research into how the equatorial ionosphere-thermosphere system react to geomagnetically disturbed conditions, empirical modeling of the neutral exosphere and data analysis of radar and optical...
Marcin Pilinski

Marcin Pilinski

Research Associate
SWx TREC • Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)
Marcin received his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering sciences from the Â鶹ÊÓƵ in 2011. His research interests include aeronomy, satellite drag modeling, spacecraft gas-surface interactions, and small spacecraft systems design. His recent projects include: the design of assimilation schemes for specifying the space environment using global circulation and empirical atmospheric models; Mars upper atmosphere research utilizing data from NASA’s MAVEN mission; teaching a graduate CubeSat design course at...
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Zach Waldron

Research Scientist
SWx TREC
Zach is a professional research assistant at the SWx TREC. His research focuses on using precision orbit determination and satellite drag impacts as a means of conducting density model validation and extracting neutral density estimates from satellite tracks. Zach is a member of the SWx TREC’s satellite drag research group and is interested in the work being done to better understand and address space traffic management of low-Earth orbiting assets...
Yang Wang

Yang Wang

Visiting Professor in Aerospace Engineering
SWx TREC
Yang is a visiting professor in the Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department. His research interests include developing GNSS receiver carrier tracking algorithms, using spaceborne GNSS measurements for the Earth’s atmosphere and surface sensing, and machine learning for the ionosphere and space weather monitoring and forecasting. Yang obtained his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering sciences from the Â鶹ÊÓƵ, M.E. in electrical and electronics engineering from Nanyang Technological University in...
Weijia Zhan

Weijia Zhan

Research Scientist I
SWx TREC
Weijia is a research associate at SWx TREC. During his PhD and postdoc research, he specialized in analyzing incoherent and coherent scatter radar measurements and investigating such topics as equatorial spread F (ESF), Joule heating, neutral wind and the interactions between the ions and neutrals at high latitudes. Now Weijia is working on equatorial and low latitude ionospheric irregularities with the state-of-art model WAM-IPE and advanced statistical methods. The goal...

Faculty

Dan Baker

Dan Baker

Co-Investigator
Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences • Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) • SWx TREC
Daniel N. Baker is the director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. He is a Distinguished Professor of Planetary and Space Physics at CU and a professor of physics in the department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences. Baker studied under James A. Van Allen and subsequently worked with Edward C. Stone at the California Institute of Technology. He was the group leader for space plasma physics at Los...
Steven Cranmer

Steven Cranmer

Education Office Lead, SWx TREC
Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences • SWx TREC • Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)
Steve is an associate professor at the Â鶹ÊÓƵ. His scientific interests include the heating of the extended outer atmosphere of the Sun (the solar corona) and other stars, the acceleration of stellar winds, theoretical plasma physics, and the dynamical atmospheres of hot, pulsating, and rapidly rotating stars. Steve worked for years as a member of the UVCS (Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer) team and is looking forward to new...
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Maria Kazachenko

Assistant Professor
Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences • Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)
I work in solar astrophysics. My research interests range from the storage of magnetic energy in solar active regions, to the release of that energy in solar flares with an emphasis of comparison and integration of observations with simulations. Understanding how this energy is stored and released is necessary to predict solar eruptions and hence the space weather. I am also involved in the development of the Critical Science Plan...
Delores Knipp

Delores Knipp

Professor
SWx TREC • Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Delores Knipp is a research professor in the Smead Aerospace Engineering Science Department and a senior research associate at the NCAR High Altitude Observatory. She is an American Meteorological Society Fellow. Her research focuses on weather at the space-atmosphere interaction region. Delores advances scientific use of space environment observations and promotes education related to space weather. She is a retired US Air Force officer and was the editor in chief...
Jade Morton

Jade Morton

Professor
SWx TREC • Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research (CCAR)
Jade Morton is a professor at the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department and director of the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research. Prior to joining CU in 2017, she was an electrical engineering professor at Colorado State University (2014–2017) and at Miami University (2000–2014). Morton’s research interests lie at the intersection of satellite navigation technologies and remote sensing of the Earth’s space environment, atmosphere, and surface. She received a Ph.D. in electrical...

Associates

Graduate Students

Tania Varesano

Graduate Student - Aerospace Engineering
SWx TREC
Tania is a Ph.D. student working on linking the Sun's surface to the heliosphere, using Solar Orbiter remote sensing and in-situ observations. Her background is in signal and image processing and artificial intelligence.

Bhagyashree Waghule

Graduate Student - Aerospace Engineering
SWx TREC
Bhagyashree is a Ph.D. student working on understanding the Magnetosphere - Ionosphere Coupling during extreme geomagnetic storms by using data fusion to analyze multi-instrument observations. She has an interdisciplinary background in Mechanical Engineering and Bioastronautics. Area of Study - Aerospace Engineering Sciences - Remote Sensing - Space Weather

Undergraduate Students

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