2018 Spring Meeting

Spring 2018 Meeting of the NCS-AAPT

March 9-10, 2018

Edgecombe Community College, Tarboro, NC

Featured Speaker: Dr. Yaireska Collado Vega, NASA space weather scientist

Photo of YAIRESKA COLLADO-VEGA

Yaireska (Yari) Collado-Vega received her PhD in Space Physics from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC with honors in January 2013. She is originally from Ponce, Puerto Rico, and has been part of the NASA GSFC family since August 2004. She received both her BS and MS in theoretical physics from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, in 2004 and 2007 respectively. She also received a second MS from The Catholic University of America on May 2010.

Currently, Collado-Vega is part of the Space Weather Laboratory at the Heliophysics Science Division working with the Community Coordinated Modeling Center. She is a senior space weather forecaster, the acting lead of the Space Weather team and a public education specialist. As a researcher, she is involved on the metrics and validation efforts of the available space weather models. Collado-Vega has conducted and published research on the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction, from vortices caused by instabilities along the Earth’s magnetopause using Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations to studying Flux Transfer Events (FTE’s) on the dayside magnetopause, the boundary that separates the solar wind with the Earth’s magnetosphere. Collado-Vega is also involved as part of an inter-divisional collaborative group at NASA GSFC that is working on the development of a Soft X-Ray magnetopause imager. In recent years, she has also participated in scientific projects and proposals of significance to NASA and ESA (European Space Agency), and to the development of data mining tools.

Collado-Vega has presented on many international and national scientific conferences. She is also currently the Science and Exploration Directorate representative in the New Developing Professional Advisory Committee at NASA GSFC where she formerly served as a co-chair for 3 years. She has also received many awards, and her work was showcased on the first Women of Goddard book. She is also the space weather scientist specialist for the education outreach program of the Heliophysics Education Consortium (HEC), has performed presentations for social media events including liveshots in English and Spanish, and was a co-host of the NASA TV Live broadcast of the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse at The College of Charleston in South Carolina.

Hotel accommodations can be made with:

A. Quality Inn & Suites, Tarboro, NC 252-824-0088 for the negotiated rate of $68. The room block is under Edgecombe Community College-Rebecca Stamilio

B. SureStay by Best Western, Tarboro, NC 252-824-0700 for a rate of $79.99. The room block is under Rebecca Stamilio. HOWEVER, if you make reservations online you can actually get a rate of $65.

Call for papers: Click here Deadline Feb. 21, 2018

Contact Rebecca Stamilio-Ehret if you have questions about the meeting.