MIST

Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial

Latest news

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

STFC Introductory Solar System Plasmas Summer School 2019 at Aberystwyth University

The STFC Introductory Solar System Plasmas Summer School will be held during 26–30 August 2019 at Aberystwyth University. Details about the summer school can be found on the school's website.

This school will provide a broad introduction of the latest scientific issues in Solar System plasma research, including the current challenges that drive research in this field. As well as the core subjects presented by leading experts, there are specialist sessions on new missions, new ground-based telescopes, and high-performance computing. Students will arrive on Sunday afternoon for registration. Formal activities will run from Monday to Friday, with an excursion planned for Wednesday afternoon. Looking forward to welcoming you to Aberystwyth ISSP19 in August!

Stephen Hawking Fellowships

The Stephen Hawking fellowships will support and develop the next generation of visionary scientists in theoretical physics at the beginning of their career. UKRI are providing funding for five annual calls delivered jointly by EPSRC and STFC. Round one is now open and intentions to submit must be received by 20 June 2019. Please direct any queries to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

MIST Council would like to draw the community’s attention to the UKRI webpage for the fellowship:

 
The scope of the fellowships extends beyond Stephen Hawking’s active areas of research such as cosmology, general relativity and quantum gravity and UKRI wish to invite other aspects of theoretical physics such as classical gravity, string theory, statistical physics, nuclear physics, particle physics, particle astrophysics, theoretical astronomy, solar and planetary physics.
 
As such, we believe that any member of the MIST community who is currently focusing on modelling work would be eligible to apply for this fellowship.

Europlanet Networking Activity Workshop on "Uniting Planetary Modelling and Data Analysis: Part 2"

The Europlanet Networking Activity Workshop on "Uniting Planetary Modelling and Data Analysis: Part 2" is to be held at Elite City Resort Hotel, Kalamata, Greece. The workshop will be held over 22–25 July 2019 and is co-convened by Nick Achilleos (UCL) and Nick Sergis (Academy of Athens).

Workshop Format

The large scientific communities involved in the analysis and modelling of ground- and space-based datasets related to planetary environments in our Solar System have, over many decades, developed sophisticated models, algorithms and software for supporting this kind of research. With missions such as Cassini leaving a large legacy dataset for Saturn, Juno expected to do the same for Jupiter, and JUICE in the pre-launch phase of development, now is the time to raise awareness of these resources and in what form their originators have provided or plan to provide them to the wider community.

Following the initial success of the related Europlanet NA workshop which took place last year in Greece, a 'follow-up' workshop is scheduled to take place during July 22 through 25 in 2019.

As before, this workshop aims to unite planetary modellers, providers of data analysis tools/services, and any planetary scientists who wish to find out more about these kind of resources, which could facilitate their research activities.

The format of the workshop will follow the established scheme of a combination of ~30 minute presentations and 'tutorial sessions' on the use of model outputs / data analysis resources. If possible this year, we would like to conduct even more 'tutorial sessions', which could be anywhere up to about 2 hours in duration, according to the wishes of the presenter.

Registration

Registration is done by sending an email confirming your attendance, and containing your presentation title, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. (Please note that you will also have to book your room, as outlined above). The registration fee is payable in cash on the first day of the meeting, and will be €100 (for regular attendees), €50 (for students and early career researchers), or free (for invited speakers).

Support

Europlanet can cover reasonable accommodation costs for approximately the first 20 participants who register, for the purpose of attending the meeting itself, during the dates below (invited speakers will automatically have their accommodation costs provided).

Booking Rooms

The hotel have recommended that participants make their reservation by sending an email directly to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. indicating that they are coming to the `Europlanet workshop', so that they get the special price of approx. €95 (single) / €125 (double). More details are on the conference website. The reduced price also applies to all participants for any number of days, right before or right after the workshop, they may wish to stay in the Elite Resort Hotel.

Autumn MIST date and venue announced

The annual Autumn MIST meeting has been announced, scheduled to be held at the Royal Astronomical Society on 29 November 2019 (the traditional date). The meeting will, as it did last year, include a poster session, lightning talks and oral presentations. More details will be announced as they are confirmed.

Radio scintillation workshop in Hermanus, South Africa during July 2019

A workshop on radio scintillation called “Scintillating Science: Cutting-Edge Science Achieved Through the Observations of Radio Scintillation” will be held in Hermanus (near Cape Town) in South Africa. The conference will be held 15–19 July 2019.

The workshop will cover all aspects of scintillation from the science (including all the domains in which it can be applied, e.g. ionosphere, heliosphere, interstellar) through to engineering concepts/requirements including all aspects of its theory/modelling. More detailed themes will appear on the workshop website before the end of March 2019, alongside invited speakers.

Early registration and abstract submission opens on 25 March 2019 and close on 31 May 2019. More information, including more dates, can be found on the workshop's webpage.