High resolution wave dynamics in the lower solar atmosphere

Dr Schunker's scientific goal is to understand the solar dynamo. She undertook her doctoral studies in astrophysics at Monash University, Australia under the supervision of Professor Paul Cally, studying the effect of sunspots on solar oscillations. Since 2006 she has been employed at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research as a post-doctoral researcher, project scientist, and now staff scientist in the department of Solar and Stellar Interiors. Dr Schunker's research has two main focuses
i) using helioseismology as a tool to understand sunspots and how solar active regions emerge onto the surface, and
ii) to understand the relationship between stellar activity and rotation, using asteroseismology to infer the interior rotation on Sun-like stars.

Peter Keys is a solar physicist whose work focuses on the lower solar atmosphere of the Sun using ground-based observations. His work centres on the dynamics of small-scale magnetic elements that are ubiquitous across the solar disc. His work on these elements follows their evolution and formation, as well as waves that are found to propagate along them. Peter was an instrument scientist for several years for the Rapid Oscillations in the Solar Atmosphere instrument at the Dunn Solar Telescope, and more recently was a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow looking at waves in small-scale magnetic elements.

Elena Khomenko is PhD in Physics and Math from Main Astronomical Observatory in Kiev (Ukraine) since 2004 and is a Research scientist at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC,  Spain). Elena has been mostly working in the field of Solar Physics, MHD wave theory, theory of partially ionized plasmas, quiet Sun magnetic fields, and spectropolarimetry. One of Elena’s research lines is the study of the interaction of solar waves and magnetic structures. The main milestone of this line is the creation of a numerical code Mancha3D, a non-linear code that solves equations of non-ideal MHD in three spatial dimensions including realistic ingredients. Her current interests focus on the investigation of the influence of partial ionization of the solar plasma onto the processes of energy propagation and release, for which she god finding from the European Research Council throughout the Starting Grant in 2011 and Consolidating Grant in 2017.

Shahin Jafarzadeh is a researcher at Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics (RoCS), University of Oslo, Norway. His main studies concern the lower-to-mid atmosphere of the Sun, regarding how magnetic fields structure dynamics of those layers — towards understanding the mysterious heating of the Sun's atmosphere. He is predominantly interested in characterisation of wave activity in the lower solar atmosphere. To this end, he works within the WaLSA international science team (https://WaLSA.team), of which, he is a coordinator. Shahin is an experienced observer and passionately engages in public outreach activities. In particular, he has been part of various science teams associated with the SUNRISE 1-m balloon-borne solar observatory, with the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope (SST) and, more recently, with ALMA.

Gary Verth studied at the University of Glasgow (MSci 2004), University of Sheffield (PhD 2008), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Northumbria University (Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2008-2012). He was awarded the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2012-2015) and took up a lectureship in applied mathematics at the University of Sheffield in 2015. He specialises in both the theory and observational interpretation of magnetohydrodynamic waves in the solar atmosphere, in both large-scale (e.g., sunspots and pores) and small-scale (e.g., spicules and chromospheric fibrils) magnetic structures. He has taken leading roles in various specialist solar waves workshops at e.g., the International Space Science Institute (Bern) and the Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics (Oslo). He has also been invited to contribute numerous review articles on solar wave physics for e.g., Space Science Reviews and American Geophysical Union Monographs.

Dr Morton is a Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University, having recently finished a prestigious Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellowship. He currently leads a small research group who are motivated to understand the role magnetohydrodynamic waves play in transferring energy around the Sun’s atmosphere, powering the heating of the million-degree solar wind and its acceleration to a million miles per hour. Dr Morton has a track record of utilising remote observations of the Sun to probe them, developing unique and innovative data analysis methodology to make significant contributions to our knowledge of the fundamental properties of these waves and details of their propagation.

David Jess is a solar physicist whose work predominantly explores the lower atmosphere of the Sun, with an emphasis placed on understanding energy flow through the turbulent and dynamic layers of the photosphere and chromosphere in the form of magnetohydrodynamic waves. He has held independent Research Fellowships from STFC and the EU, and is the Principal Investigator of the Hydrogen-Alpha Rapid Dynamics camera (HARDcam) instrument at the Dunn Solar Telescope, USA, and is currently building a fibre-fed, near-UV hyper-spectropolarimetric imager for the Indian National Large Solar Telescope. He was appointed to his current role as academic staff at Queen’s University Belfast in 2013.

Marco Stangalini is a researcher at ASI (Italian Space Agency), and his main research focuses on the plasma and magnetic field dynamics in the lower solar atmosphere. In particular, his interests are primarily the study of MHD waves, through the analysis of high spatial resolution spectropolarimetric data, and the development of new high resolution instrumentation.

Ben Snow is a postdoc at the University of Exeter studying the effects of partially ionised plasma. In particular, his research activities include performing two-fluid numerical simulations of shocks and the interactions between neutral and ionised species. He also have projects investigating the behaviour of resonances above sunspot umbrae, and constructing 3D non-force-free magnetic atmospheres from observed magnetograms.  

Previously, he was a PDRA at the University of Sheffield, investigating wave interactions in interacting pairs of magnetic flux tubes. Dr Snow's PhD was entitled 'Numerical Simulations of Chromospheric Physics' and was attained at Northumbria University, where he researched chromospheric resonance, magnetic reconnection, and forward modelling.