Dr. Thomas Immel is a Senior Fellow at Space Sciences Laboratory, with a Ph. D. in Physics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His interests are in exploring the conditions in space near Earth, and learning to predict the behaviors in this system. He specializes in ultraviolet observations of Earth, through which key quantities of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere can be retrieved. Ultraviolet auroral imaging reveals processes in Earth’s magnetosphere, and how the atmosphere is heated and put into motion by auroral energy. He’s published studies using data from the UV imagers on Dynamics Explorer 1, POLAR, IMAGE, and TIMED, spanning more than 30 years of NASA observations

Thomas is the principal investigator on the Ionospheric Connection Explorer, a NASA mission to explore this region with an innovative combination of remote sensing and local measurements to resolve the mysterious variablity of the ionosphere.With unprecedented observations from this region of space, ICON scientists are prepared to make remarkable advances, working with a group of UCB students and scientists, and partners at universities and laboratories across the nation and the world. Check the ICON website for more info.