Natasha Jeffrey

I obtained my PhD (“Spatial, spectral and polarisation properties of solar flare X-ray sources”) in solar physics in 2014 at the University of Glasgow before becoming a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Glasgow. In 2019, I joined Northumbria University as a Vice-Chancellor Fellow/Lecturer.

My research studies solar flares, huge releases of energy in the Sun’s atmosphere. Solar flares provide us with an astrophysical laboratory for understanding processes such as magnetic reconnection and turbulence, and the production and properties of energetic particles. My work uses high energy observations (X-ray, EUV) to study flares and energetic particles at the Sun, and the creation of kinetic models to study particle acceleration and particle and x-ray transport effects in flares.

My current list of publications can be found here.

My current CV (updated June 2021) can be found here.

I am currently the deputy chair of the UK Solar Physics council. Please visit https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/uksp and click on “Subscribe or Unsubscribe” to join the UKSP email list.

I am currently the PI of the UKRI STFC New Applicant Grant (ST/V000764/1) "Exploring the connection between solar flare energetic electrons observed at the Sun and in the heliosphere", working with Dr Ross Pallister. In this project, we will model and observe solar flare-accelerated electrons at the Sun and in the heliosphere together with the aim of constraining the mechanisms and environment of solar flare particle acceleration.

In 2018/2019 I led the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) Bern team “Solar flare acceleration signatures and their connection to solar energetic particles” with Dr Frederic Effenberger (Helmholtz Centre, Potsdam, Germany). The aim of the team was to understand the connection between different populations of energetic particles produced at the Sun and in the heliosphere, and how they can be used to further our understanding of astrophysical plasma processes and astrophysical particle acceleration in general.

I am exploring the important topic of solar flare turbulence and the role it plays in electron acceleration and transport with Ms. Morgan Stores (PhD student funded by a Northumbria University RDF Studentship) using a combination of solar flare spectral line observations and the kinetic modelling of electrons in spatially varying turbulence.

I am also currently the PI of the British Council Alliance Hubert Curien Programme (UK side) which provides funds for two years to hold joint UK-France (Paris Observatory) workshops on the topic of "Solar flare energetic particles in the turbulent corona and heliosphere". Our first workshop will be held online on the 28-29 June 2021.

Between 2016 and 2018 I received the following prizes for my research: European Geophysical Union (EGU) Solar-­Terrestrial Early Career Researcher Prize, European Physical Society (EPS) Solar Physics Division (ESPD) Early Career Researcher Prize, and the EPS Plasma Physics Thesis Prize.