James L. Burch is a veritable space pioneer — a leader of satellite missions to the great unknown, a decoder of the secrets of space, a distributor of knowledge to the community and the world and a cultivator of individuals and societies that inspire scientists of today and tomorrow. Jim’s research interests broadly cover the interaction of the solar wind with magnetospheres of Earth, other planets and comets. Jim was a principal investigator (PI) of instrument teams on NASA’s Dynamics Explorer 1 (DE) and the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission and overall PI of two NASA missions — Imager for Magnetopauseto-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) and Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS). Jim is a tireless advocate of space missions. IMAGE measured energetic neutral atoms and scattered solar ultraviolet emissions to obtain the first global images of the structure and dynamics of inner regions of Earth’s magnetosphere, the “hot” ring current and “cold” plasmasphere — regions previously known via single-point measurements. Jim used IMAGE to reveal how the inner magnetosphere responds to changes in the solar wind, that auroral arcs are controlled by the interplanetary magnetic field, and why the plasmasphere lags behind the flow due to corotation. MMS studies the smallest scales of magnetic reconnection, which plays a crucial role in space weather. Jim steered the mission from the science definition team report through its successful launch and continued operations. The mission required numerous technological advances to be successful. One example is a problem Jim solved — he designed and patented a new mass spectrometer to measure heavy ions. The chief goal of the mission, measuring an electron diffusion region, was accomplished within 8 months. His unselfish cooperation was on display as a mission PI. At the time of IMAGE, NASA did not require the release of data, but Jim established an open data policy from the beginning. With MMS, data became freely available within 1 year of its launch. Jim has displayed unselfishness through his service to AGU in editorial roles for the Journal of Geophysical Research and Geophysical Research Letters, as president of the Space Physics and Aeronomy section and on numerous AGU committees. Outside of AGU, he was on the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board and chaired the Committee on Solar and Space Physics, which carried out the first space physics decadal survey. Perhaps most importantly, Jim has served as a model, to a generation of scientists, of the virtues of unselfishness. 

— Paul Cassak West Virginia University Morgantown, West Virginia

Response

Thank you, Paul, for your overly generous citation. Coming from the top young gun of space plasma theory, it means more than you can know. I also thank your supporting letter writers, Bob Ergun, Gene Parker and Byron Tapley. I am very pleased and honored to accept the Bowie Medal, which is a humbling experience because experimental space physics requires large teams of talented and dedicated people. As I learned in graduate school at Rice, progress in space physics is fueled by new measurement techniques. A good example is magnetospheric imaging. By the mid-1990s we knew that charged particles could be imaged by measurements in the ultraviolet and neutral atoms, but the instruments didn't exist. With instruments developed by scientists such as Don Mitchell, Stephen Mende and Bill Sandel, the IMAGE mission was able to image all of these populations, and seeing the first picture of energetic ions circling the Earth on the cover of Science was truly exciting. Another example is the study of magnetic reconnection, which powers much of the interesting plasma phenomena in the universe like solar flares, auroras and supernova remnants. We knew magnetic reconnection is fundamentally important, but we couldn't know how it works because fast enough measurements didn't exist. The requirement for the MMS mission was to probe the electron scale by increasing the time resolution of particle measurements by a factor of 100 beyond the existing record. Such a great leap almost never happens, but Tom Moore and Craig Pollock achieved it. I want to thank the leaders at NASA who provide us with these opportunities. I appreciate the leadership of Thomas Zurbuchen and the confidence he has shown in me and our group at Southwest Research Institute. AGU has given me a science home for 56 years, allowing me through volunteer activities to make friends among a wide range of Earth and space scientists.

Space science is fun and rewarding, but it holds a distant second place to family. We are a close-knit group with three children and seven grandchildren who are each very different and very awesome. But it is the gorgeous and brilliant math major I met in class at St. Mary's University who makes it worthwhile to get up every morning. We've done everything together for the same 56 years during which we've taken care of each other. I have always gotten by far the better end of that deal.

— James L. Burch
Southwest Research Institute
San Antonia, Texas