MIST

Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial

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Announcement of New MIST Councillors.

We are very pleased to announce the following members of the community have been elected unopposed to MIST Council:

  • Rosie Johnson (Aberystwyth University), MIST Councillor
  • Matthew Brown (University of Birmingham), MIST Councillor
  • Chiara Lazzeri (MSSL, UCL), Student Representative

Rosie, Matthew, and Chiara will begin their terms in July. This will coincide with Jasmine Kaur Sandhu, Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, and Sophie Maguire outgoing as Councillors.

The current composition of Council can be found on our website, and this will be amended in July to reflect this announcement (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council).

Nominations are open for MIST Council

We are very pleased to open nominations for MIST Council. There are three positions available (detailed below), and elected candidates would join Georgios Nicolaou, Andy Smith, Maria-Theresia Walach, and Emma Woodfield on Council. The nomination deadline is Friday 31 May.

Council positions open for nomination

2 x MIST Councillor - a three year term (2024 - 2027). Everyone is eligible.

MIST Student Representative - a one year term (2024 - 2025). 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. Two of our outgoing councillors, Beatriz and Sophie, have summarised their experiences being on MIST Council below.

Beatriz Sanchez-Cano (MIST Councillor):

"Being part of the MIST council for the last 3 years has been a great experience personally and professionally, in which I had the opportunity to know better our community and gain a larger perspective of the matters that are important for the MIST science progress in the UK. During this time, I’ve participated in a number of activities and discussions, such as organising the monthly MIST seminars, Autumn MIST meetings, writing A&G articles, and more importantly, being there to support and advise our colleagues in cases of need together with the wonderful council members. MIST is a vibrant and growing community, and the council is a faithful reflection of it."

Sophie Maguire (MIST Student Representative):

"Being the student representative for MIST council has been an amazing experience. I have been part of organizing conferences, chairing sessions, and writing grant applications based on the feedback MIST has received. From a wider perspective, MIST has helped to grow and support my professional networks which in turn, directly benefits my PhD work as well. I would encourage any PhD student to apply for the role of MIST Student Representative and I would be happy to answer any questions or queries you have about the role."

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 31 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:

  1. Name
  2. Position (Councillor/Student Rep.)
  3. Nomination Statement (150 words max including a bit about the nominee and focusing on your reasons for nominating. This will be circulated to the community in the event of a vote.)

MIST Council details

  • Sophie Maguire, University of Birmingham, Earth's ionosphere - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
  • Georgios Nicolaou, MSSL, solar wind plasma - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
  • Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, University of Leicester, Mars plasma - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Jasmine Kaur Sandhu, University of Leicester, Earth’s inner magnetosphere - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Andy Smith, Northumbria University, Space Weather - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
  • Maria-Theresia Walach, Lancaster University, Earth’s ionosphere - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
  • Emma Woodfield, British Antarctic Survey, radiation belts - 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. 

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.

System-scale observations and modelling of solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling

As a result of COVID-19, the below meeting has been cancelled, and will appear in the 2020/21 round.

A RAS G discussion meeting on “System-scale observations and modelling of solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling” will be held at the Royal Astronomical Society on 17 April 2020 from 10:00–15:30. The registration fee is free for RAS members, £5 for students, or £15 for non-student non-members.

The invited speaker will be Colin Waters (University of Newcastle, Australia).

If you would like to submit an abstract, please complete the abstract submission form by 20 March 2020.

Read more: System-scale observations and modelling of solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling

Nonstationary signal analysis in geophysics and other fields

A summer school plus conference on “Nonstationary Signal Analysis in Geophysics and other fields” will take place at Gran Sasso Science Institute, in L’Aquila, Italy, on 13–18 July 2020.

During the Summer School young researchers and PhD students will have a chance to learn about new data analysis tools/techniques for non-stationary time series and their theoretical foundation.

The summer school will take place during the first four days and it will consist of three eight-hour courses. Lecturers at the school are Patrick Flandrin (ENS Lyon), Yang Wang (HKSTU), and Hau-tieng Wu (Duke University).

At the end of the school there will be a three-day conference during which the speakers will show both the applications of these techniques to real-life data and present the current frontiers of theoretical research.

Applications for prospective students of the Summer School, as well as speakers of the conference are now open; for more information and to apply please visit the event webpage.

Autumn MIST

We look forward to welcoming you all to the MIST meeting taking place on Friday 24 January 2020 and would like to remind you all of a few details for the day. 

Location and Registration Fees

This year the meeting will be held at the Geological Society (across the courtyard from the RAS) at Burlington House. Registration is open from 09:30 and the meeting starts at 10:30. The registration fee is £25 - we can only accept on-the-door payments in cash.

New Programme

Click here for an up-to-date version of the programme and here for abstracts. Please notify us of any errors or omissions in the programme as soon as possible. 

Presenter Information

Contributed talks are scheduled as 12 minutes long, which should include 2 minutes for questions. Lightning talks must be a maximum of one slide and a duration of 2 minutes. The projector is suitable for slides with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The poster boards are suitable for A0 portrait posters - please do not bring posters wider than A0 portrait as you will be unable to fully display your poster.

Code of Conduct

We expect all attendees to follow the RAS code of conduct.

Europlanet Hub planetary science meeting

The Ireland and UK Hub of the Europlanet Society are conducting their first regional meeting on Friday 27 March 2020 at the Royal Astronomical Society in London. Regional Hubs are a means of promoting and disseminating planetary science research, and related activities, as part of the Europlanet Society's aims.

Reseachers from the Ireland and UK planetary science community are invited to take part in this meeting. The event will encompass the full range of planetary science research within the Ireland-UK communities, as well as showcasing the development of planetary science infrastructures and facilities. The programme will consist of oral and poster presentations.

Presentations are particularly encouraged from early career researchers, and scientists who have disseminated their work via Europlanet networking workshops or research infrastructure. We have five featured invited speakers who will describe their own research or the activities of the Europlanet Society.

For further details about the meeting and how to submit an abstract, click here.

This web page also includes details about a survey on Hub activities. All planetary scientists, regardless of whether they attend the meeting or not, are encouraged to respond to this survey by using the link on the Hub page. This will help focus the Hub's efforts over the next few years, and help make the Europlanet Society a valuable forum for its members.

Autumn MIST rescheduled

The community has voted to reschedule Autumn MIST for 24 January 2020.

We are moving forward with the same roster of speakers and posters that were previously announced. If you had submitted an oral, lightning, or poster presentation, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 10 January so that we can verify the schedule accordingly.

MIST Council would like to thank the MIST community for a huge response to the questionnaire, which had 69 responses.