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Member Since 1989
Nat Gopalswamy
Astrophysicist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Dr. Nat Gopalswamy is an Astrophysicist with the Solar Physics Laboratory, Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He is an internationally recognized expert in coronal mass ejections and their space weather consequences, with a deep interest in understanding how solar variability impacts Earth. He has authored or co-authored more than 400 scientific articles and has edited nine books. He is an AGU Fellow and Doctor Honoris Causa from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
Professional Experience
Indian Institute of Science
2021 - Present
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Astrophysicist
2002 - Present
NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center - Wallops Flight Facility
Astrophysicist
2002 - 2002
Catholic University of America
Research Professor
1997 - 2002
University of Maryland College Park
Assistant and Associate Research Scientist
1985 - 1997
Indian Inst of Astrophysics
Fellow and Observatory Resident Scientist
1983 - 1985
Indian Institute of Astrophysics
Visiting Scientist
1982 - 1983
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Education
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Doctorate
1982
Indian Institute of Science
Doctorate
1982
Honors & Awards
Space Physics and Aeronomy Richard Carrington Education and Public Outreach (SPARC) Award
Received December 2019
Citation
Nat Gopalswamy has made a lasting impact on the Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) community by serving in various leadership roles at national and international levels: president of International Astronomical Union Commission 49, president of the Scientific Committee on Solar–Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP), executive director of the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI), international coordinator of the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) 2007 program, and many more. In all his capacities, Gopalswamy has striven to bring together scientists from developed countries and young scientists and students from developing countries in one room to plan and brainstorm for better global cooperation and to spread space science education, instrument deployment, and research activities to developing countries. Gopalswamy is at the forefront of capacity-building activities of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), SCOSTEP, and the International Living With a Star (ILWS) program. Hundreds of students and young scientists have benefited from these activities, and many have become productive scientists. Gopalswamy introduced the SCOSTEP Visiting Scholar (SVS) program in 2015. The SVS program enables graduate students from developing countries to visit established institutions and develop lasting collaborations. Under this program, dozens of students from all over the world have benefited over the past 5 years. Gopalswamy also serves as an exemplar by hosting several students in his laboratory, many of whom are women and minority students from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Gopalswamy’s outreach and capacity-building activities, with special devotion and strong commitment to students and professors from developing nations, have had significant impacts in our fields of study, consistent with the objectives of the SPARC Award program. In addition to being an eminent scientist with more than 400 scientific articles that have been cited more than 18,500 times, Gopalswamy takes pride in his education and outreach and capacity-building efforts. His efforts have helped establish space science applications in regions of the world where space science education and research were previously absent or neglected. For all of these reasons, Gopalswamy is most deserving of the 2019 SPARC Award. —Endawoke Yizengaw, The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.
Response
It is a great privilege to receive this award in honor of Richard Carrington, who discovered that the Sun affects Earth in ways beyond providing life-sustaining light and heat. Exploring this connection and sharing the knowledge gained with future explorers are highly rewarding. The International Heliophysical Year (IHY) 2007 program that morphed into the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI) provided a strong platform for my education and public outreach activities. Collaboration with SCOSTEP, ILWS, and COSPAR provided further impetus to these activities. The most rewarding aspect of these activities is that they bring together scientists from developed and developing countries, paving the way for lasting scientific collaborations. The International Space Science Schools and Space Weather workshops have proven to be excellent venues of learning and creativity, providing opportunities for young students and scientists from all over the world. Activities at these venues include lectures, software training, data analysis training, instrument deployment, and introduction of data from space missions. It is heartening to see that many of the young people who have attended these schools and workshops remain in space science and are emerging as leaders and active scientists in their own right. The efforts that led to this SPARC Award are not mine alone: There have been dozens of international experts who taught and hosted the IHY/ISWI/SCOSTEP schools over the past 2 decades; more than a thousand participants who enriched the IHY and ISWI workshops conducted in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA); scores of mentors in COSPAR capacity-building workshops; and the ISWI instrument leads who have deployed more than 1,000 space weather instruments in more than 100 countries. —Nat Gopalswamy, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Union Fellow
Received December 2016
Citation
For significant contributions to the understanding of coronal mass ejections and solar radio emission and to space weather prediction and for tireless leadership effort
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Publications
What Is Unusual About the Third Largest Geomagnetic Storm of Solar Cycle 24?

We report on the solar and interplanetary (IP) causes of the third largest geomagnetic storm (26 August 2018) in solar cycle 24. The underlying cor...

August 22, 2022
AGU Abstracts
Magnetic Flux Rope Structures near the Sun and at 1 au during Solar Cycle 25 Rising Phase
ONLINE POSTER SESSION FOR SPA: SOLAR AND HELIOSPHERIC PHYSICS III
spa-solar and heliospheric physics | 24 january 2024
Hong Xie, Nat Gopalswamy, Sachiko Akiyama, Makela ...
Using multi-viewpoint observations of STEREO and SOHO during the rising (RS) phase of solar cycle (SC) 25, we study the magnetic flux rope (MFR) struc...
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Scientific Results From Simulating MOST/FETCH Multi-Path Faraday Rotation Observations of a Coronal Mass Ejection
EXPLORING NEW FRONTIERS ON THE SUN WITH MULTIVIEWPOINT OBSERVATIONS I ELIGHTNING
spa-solar and heliospheric physics | 13 december 2023
Elizabeth A. Jensen, Nat Gopalswamy, Shing F. Fung...
Observing the magnetic field in solar wind structures upstream of the Earth enables investigating their internal structure and how it changes as it pr...
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Multi-viewpoint Observations of the Sun from the Solar Interior to the Inner Heliosphere
EXPLORING NEW FRONTIERS ON THE SUN WITH MULTIVIEWPOINT OBSERVATIONS I ELIGHTNING
spa-solar and heliospheric physics | 13 december 2023
Nat Gopalswamy
The Multiview Observatory for Solar Terrestrial Science (MOST) mission is focused on understanding the global impact of flux emergence from the solar ...
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Volunteer Experience
2019 - 2020
Member
Space Physics and Aeronomy Fellows Committee
2018 - 2018
Member
Space Physics and Aeronomy Fellows Committee
Check out all of Nat Gopalswamy’s AGU Research!
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