Welcome

I conduct space physics research attempting to understand the flow of energy, mass, and momentum from the Sun through the Earth’s space environment. Specifically, I am interested in magnetic structures and ULF waves in the heliosphere and magnetosphere, the distribution of plasma in the inner magnetosphere, the coupling of energy between the ionosphere and magnetosphere, and space weather. I develop and use magnetometers that fly on spacecraft and are deployed around the world, remote sensing data (EUV and radio waves), and modeling (including machine learning and sensor fusion algorithm development). I also conduct faculty (K-12 and university) professional development around inclusive mentoring and teaching and formal and informal audience educational outreach.

If interested in working with me as an undergraduate, graduate student, or postdoc, please feel free to contact me. I am especially interested in working with those that want to learn, grow and develop their competencies around justice, diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility within STEM. And by the way – Ann Arbor is a great place to live and is a Top 50 Science City in the World!

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January 12, 2001 version
ionosphere

Biography

Mark Moldwin is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering and Applied Physics within the University of Michigan’s Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering within the College of Engineering and affiliated with the Space Physics Research Laboratory, the Engineering Education Research program, the African Studies Center, the Michigan Institute for Plasma Science and Engineering, and the Robotics Institute. He is the Faculty Director of UM’s Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, UM’s M-STEM’s M-Engin program, Past-President of the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Education Section, and Executive Director of NASA’s Michigan Space Grant Consortium. Prior to joining the faculty of UM in July of 2009, Dr. Moldwin was a Professor of Space Physics at UCLA (2000-2009), Professor of Physics and Space Sciences at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne (1994-2000), and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Space and Atmospheric Sciences and Non-proliferation and International Security groups at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Moldwin joined the lab in 1992 after receiving his Ph.D. in Astronomy/Space Physics from Boston University. He was awarded a B.A. in Physics with Honors from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks in 1987.

Dr. Moldwin’s primary research interests are magnetospheric, ionospheric, and heliospheric plasma physics, magnetometer development, and college space science education and outreach. He has published two textbooks, over 200 articles and essays (including over 190 refereed scientific articles), and holds four patents on these subjects. Dr. Moldwin was a NASA/ASEE Kennedy Space Center Faculty Fellow, a Los Alamos National Laboratory Associated Western Universities Faculty Fellow, and a NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Visiting Scientist. Prof. Moldwin is a National Science Foundation CAREER Award winner and a Research Corporation Cottrell Scholar. Prof. Moldwin is or has been the principal or co-investigator of over 85 externally peer-reviewed scientific projects including building the magnetometers to fly on NASA’s Space Technology – 5 satellites, the Air Force DSX mission satellite, NASA’s Artemis Lunar Gateway, NASA’s ICOVEX satellite, NASA’s Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) spacecraft, and ground-based magnetometer and GPS receiver deployment in North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Antarctica. Mark is a co-founder of A2 Motus LLC an education and research technology company developing devices to enable teachers and students to better understand complex systems through kinesthetic activities and space weather monitors.

Prof. Moldwin has taught over a dozen different physics and space science courses, chaired or served on the dissertation committees of over 50 Ph.D. students in Geophysics, Space Physics, Plasma Physics, Astronomy, Atmospheric Physics, Applied Physics, and Electrical Engineering, was awarded Florida Tech’s Teaching Excellence Award, UCLA’s Academic Senate’s Distinguished Teaching Award, was rated as a Top Ten Professor by the Associated Student’s of UCLA, was awarded UM’s Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize, the UM College of Engineering’s Raymond J. and Monica E. Schultz Outreach and Diversity Award, UM’s Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award, and the UM College of Engineering’s John F. Ulrich Education Excellence Award. He currently serves as a Faculty Associate of UM’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching in Engineering, a member of the National Center for Institutional Diversity UM Diversity Scholars Network, and was the 2019-2020 US Fulbright Arctic Chair. He was recognized for his “extraordinary service to geophysics” with the 2016 AGU Union Waldo E. Smith Award and the 2019-2020 UM CoE Trudy Huebner Service Excellence Award. Recently was named the 2024 Science Teaching and Research (STAR) award winner by Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement.

2-Page CV (July 2024)