Lindsay Glesener

Lindsay Glesener

Associate Professor, School of Physics and Astronomy

My area of research is solar astrophysics - the physics of the Sun! I try to figure out how magnetic energy is released at the Sun, how solar flares accelerate particles, and why the Sun's corona is so hot. To investigate these issues, I analyze X-ray data from NASA spacecraft along with a lot of context measurements. Any study of the Sun and space is inherently multi-messenger, as we typically look at photons across the electromagnetic spectrum; we also directly sample the energetic particles themselves that are ejected; and we even measure plasma ejections and plasma waves in interplanetary space that are generated at the Sun. A wide range of remote-sensing and in-situ spacecraft instruments supply these measurements. The vast expanse of resulting data presents immense challenges in data science, but also abundant promise and opportunity.