MIST

Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial

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Winners of Rishbeth Prizes 2023

We are pleased to announce that following Spring MIST 2023 the Rishbeth Prizes this year are awarded to Sophie Maguire (University of Birmingham) and Rachel Black (University of Exeter).

Sophie wins the prize for the best MIST student talk which was entitled “Large-scale plasma structures and scintillation in the high-latitude ionosphere”. Rachel wins the best MIST poster prize, for a poster entitled “Investigating different methods of chorus wave identification within the radiation belts”. Congratulations to both Sophie and Rachel!

As prize winners, Sophie and Rachel will be invited to write articles for Astronomy & Geophysics, which we look forward to reading.

MIST Council extends their thanks to the University of Birmingham for hosting the Spring MIST meeting 2023, and to the Royal Astronomical Society for their generous and continued support of the Rishbeth Prizes.

Nominations for MIST Council

We are pleased to open nominations for MIST Council. There are two positions available (detailed below), and elected candidates would join Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, Jasmine Kaur Sandhu, Andy Smith, Maria-Theresia Walach, and Emma Woodfield on Council. The nomination deadline is Friday 26 May.

Council positions open for nomination

  • MIST Councillor - a three year term (2023 - 2026). Everyone is eligible.
  • MIST Student Representative - a one year term (2023 - 2024). Only PhD students are eligible. See below for further details.

About being on MIST Council


If you would like to find out more about being on Council and what it can involve, please feel free to email any of us (email contacts below) with any of your informal enquiries! You can also find out more about MIST activities at mist.ac.uk.

Rosie Hodnett (current MIST Student Representative) has summarised their experience on MIST Council below:
"I have really enjoyed being the PhD representative on the MIST council and would like to encourage other PhD students to nominate themselves for the position. Some of the activities that I have been involved in include leading the organisation of Autumn MIST, leading the online seminar series and I have had the opportunity to chair sessions at conferences. These are examples of what you could expect to take part in whilst being on MIST council, but the council will welcome any other ideas you have. If anyone has any questions, please email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..”

How to nominate

If you would like to stand for election or you are nominating someone else (with their agreement!) please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Friday 26 May. If there is a surplus of nominations for a role, then an online vote will be carried out with the community. Please include the following details in the nomination:
  • Name
  • Position (Councillor/Student Rep.)
  • Nomination Statement (150 words max including a bit about the nominee and your reasons for nominating. This will be circulated to the community in the event of a vote.)
 
MIST Council contact details

Rosie Hodnett - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mathew Owens - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Beatriz Sanchez-Cano - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Jasmine Kaur Sandhu - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Andy Smith - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Maria-Theresia Walach - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Emma Woodfield - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
MIST Council email - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

RAS Awards

The Royal Astronomical Society announced their award recipients last week, and MIST Council would like to congratulate all that received an award. In particular, we would like to highlight the following members of the MIST Community, whose work has been recognised:
  • Professor Nick Achilleos (University College London) - Chapman Medal
  • Dr Oliver Allanson (University of Birmingham) - Fowler Award
  • Dr Ravindra Desai (University of Warwick) - Winton Award & RAS Higher Education Award
  • Professor Marina Galand (Imperial College London) - James Dungey Lecture
Full details can be found here: https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/royal-astronomical-society-unveils-2023-award-winners.

New MIST Council 2021-

There have been some recent ingoings and outgoings at MIST Council - please see below our current composition!:

  • Oliver Allanson, Exeter (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2024 -- Chair
  • Beatriz Sánchez-Cano, Leicester (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2024
  • Mathew Owens, Reading (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2023
  • Jasmine Sandhu, Northumbria (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2023 -- Vice-Chair
  • Maria-Theresia Walach, Lancaster (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2022
  • Sarah Badman, Lancaster (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2022
    (co-opted in 2021 in lieu of outgoing councillor Greg Hunt)

Charter amendment and MIST Council elections open

Nominations for MIST Council open today and run through to 8 August 2021! Please feel free to put yourself forward for election – the voting will open shortly after the deadline and run through to the end of August. The positions available are:

  • 2 members of MIST Council
  • 1 student representative (pending the amendment below passing)

Please email nominations to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 8 August 2021. Thank you!

Charter amendment

We also move to amend the following articles of the MIST Charter as demonstrated below. Bold type indicates additions and struck text indicates deletions. Please respond to the email on the MIST mailing list before 8 August 2021 if you would like to object to the amendment; MIST Charter provides that it will pass if less than 10% of the mailing list opposes its passing. 

4.1  MIST council is the collective term for the officers of MIST and consists of six individuals and one student representative from the MIST community.

5.1 Members of MIST council serve terms of three years, except for the student representative who serves a term of one year.

5.2 Elections will be announced at the Spring MIST meeting and voting must begin within two months of the Spring MIST meeting. Two slots on MIST council will be open in a given normal election year, alongside the student representative.

5.10 Candidates for student representative must not have submitted their PhD thesis at the time that nominations close.

List of seminar speakers

The following is a list of people who have registered their interest in giving seminars on their research interests at other institutions. The aims of this list are:

  1. To improve the visibility, and awareness, of the work done by different researchers and research groups.
  2. To assist local organisers of regular institutional seminar series with suggestions for speakers, particularly PhD students and postdocs who may be less widely known in the community.
  3. To assist the science organising committees of conferences and meetings, as above.

If you would like to appear on the below list or you would like to edit the details that appear on this page, please fill in this google form. We note that there is no obligation for the people listed below to accept invitations extended by MIST institutions. The list is also available in this spreadsheet.

 (Last updated on 03 November 2020.)

Speakers

  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Numerical experiments of wave-particle interactions in the inner magnetosphere; basic theory of collisionless plasma equilibria and stability (current sheets and flux tubes).
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Dayside magnetospheric dynamics at Earth; transient kinetic phenomena in the foreshock, bow shock and magnetosheath; magnetospheric ULF waves and resonances; magnetospheric variability; novel analysis techniques; sonification of data; public engagement.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — high latitude thermosphere-ionopshere coupling (mainly the effects of ion drag and the timescales on which it acts); the resultant Joule heating; its variations due to multiple criteria (aurora/neutral winds).
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Machine learning; solar wind; radiation belts; space weather; big data techniques.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Interactions with the ionosphere; radar observations; satellite observations; community programming.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Type II solar radio burst band-splitting.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Birkeland currents (aka field-aligned currents); AMPERE observations; substorms; flux transfer events (FTEs); northward IMF.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Heliospheric physics; evolution of coronal mass ejections (CMEs); magnetic clouds; solar wind; solar transients.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Investigating the interaction between the solar wind and the Martian plasma environment.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Magnetospheric physics; ionospheric physics; space weather; magnetic reconnection; magnetohydrodynamics (MHD); computer simulations
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Saturn's magnetosphere; end of the Cassini mission; Saturn's periodicities; large-scale currents systems; field-aligned current systems
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Field-aligned currents; the Jovian magnetodisc.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Ionosphere; magnetosphere; solar quiet currents; equatorial electrojets; geomagnetic field.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Mars plasma system, ionosphere, space weather.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Substorms; ring current energisation; Van Allen observations; field line eigenfrequencies.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Electrical current systems of the magnetosphere (field-aligned currents); dynamics of the terrestrial magnetosphere; sub-auroral polarization streams (SAPS); magnetospheric and ionospheric convection.
  • Andy Smith (MSSL/UCL, PDRA) — Ground impact of Space Weather, Classification and Forecasting; Substorm dynamics and onset, conjugate ground and space observations.
  • David Stansby (MSSL/UCL, PDRA) — Solar wind, in-situ/remote sensing connections, inner heliosphere.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling; response time-scales to solar wind driving; SuperDARN observations; auroral observations.
  • This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. — Heliospheric physics; solar wind; plasma turbulence; collisionless heating; non-linear plasma physics; kinetic physics; micro-instabilities; statistical data analysis; hybrid/particle-in-cell simulations.